A blaster from the past
by mad-man
Summary: story dead untill further notice.
1. Default Chapter

Hello Megaman fans. The MAD-MAN is back with another fic for you. Hard to say what this is, I wondered what ever happened to the first 'robot' megaman before the 'reploid' megamanX was built. The first half of the story is clear at the end of the original series. The second half of the story is set after X2 but before the start of X3. Warning! Character death, a surprising amount of it.

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A blaster from the past

Dr. Light was in his laboratory, working on his next project. He was growing tired of these long nights in the lab. Tired of planning devices meant to improve the world, only to toss them aside to build weapons of destruction. He didn't mind saving the world, far from it, it made him feel wonderful. He just wanted to stop fighting Wily and start making the world better.

His current project was hopefully a way to let him spend his last years the way he wanted without worrying about the world falling to Wily's plains. He was building a neural pathway recorder and replicatior. He wasn't sure this would work; so much of the technology was still experimental.

Rock and Roll spent the days doing chores around the house and worried over Dr. Light's failing health. Wily had disappeared months ago; Rock thought he would be back with another plot for world domination soon. Roll had finally convinced Rock to remove his weapons and armor, but only after Dr. Light had refined the transfer system.

Normally Rock would be helping the Dr. work on his projects but the Dr. refused to let him see what work he was doing. Rush simply lay around the house waiting for something to do. Countless other robots wandered in and out at will, many had even once been fought by Rock as Megaman.

Dr. Light only came out of his lab to eat and rest, locking the lab to anyone else. He only told Rock and Roll that his project was almost complete before disappearing back into his lab. Rock begin repairing his Mega armors and old weapons, over the years of battling Wily's robots he had worn out many different powerful weapons.

One day Rock was playing ball with Rush and Roll in the yard when there was an explosion back at the house. Rock didn't miss a step as he transported his armor and leapt onto Rush's back. They flew back into the house with Roll running along behind. Inside the house everything was blackened and charred.

The door had been thrown from the lab doorway, shattered against the opposite wall. Megaman dropped from Rush's back and crept in the door with his buster charged and ready. Inside the lab nothing was damaged except the door and a strange device near the center of the room.

Megaman walked forward carefully looking for Dr. Light, he stopped before the device and looked down inside the pod-like cavity. Inside was the blackened body of Dr. Light, Megaman checked for a pulse but couldn't find any sign of life. Roll came in the Darkened lab and called for Dr. Light.

Megaman just stood there and tried to get his processors to comprehend what he would do without Light. Roll stopped beside him and froze in shock as she begin trying to understand why this happened. Megaman reached into the pod and withdrew Light's body. He turned without a word and left the house with rush following him.

Roll came out of the house later to find Megaman using his buster to burn Light's name into a tree over where he had burred Light. The next few days Rock and Roll spent doing what they always did, they couldn't comprehend what to do without light. Finally one day as Rock was repairing the door to the lab he heard a beeping behind him.

The strange device was giving of a genital glow as it began to reactivate. Rock came over to it and studied it in detail, the damage was almost gone and several small screens where running vast strands of code. The machine was repairing itself and running whatever programs Dr. Light had made it for.

Rock picked up a muti-tool and began repair the worst damage. He worked late into the night and most the next day, not caring about Roll's call for him to recharge or Rush attempting to get him to play ball. His processors had decided he would Finish whatever Light had started.

Days later he was only awake because of his sub tanks energy and the urge to finish the device. He worked from the plans he found in Light's computer and worked hard to keep the data that the device repeated endlessly from becoming corrupt. Finally as Roll and Rush broke thru the repaired door Rock had finally finished the device.

Rock brushed off Roll's attempts to drag him out of the lab and activated the device. With a slight hum the device shot a beam of light into the air where it developed into the form of Dr. Light. Roll fell silent as her processors refused what she was seeing, Rock merely slumped down in a chair.

The hologram flicked and blinked as Light looked down at them. His form blinked twice and started to speak, "Rock, Roll, if you are hearing this my project was not a success. This device was meant to copy my mental abilities and memories into a holographic form. The corporal Dr. light was meant to live but I, or rather he, knew that the device had many risks. That is why he recorded this message, this message hold instructions on what I need you two to do."

The hologram flickered again and the face of Dr. light dropped into a frown, "it appears that I was incorrect. The device has apparently a complete recreation of Dr. lights memories and thought processes, however the device never had a chance to complete the composition of the final neural replication because of missing data."

Roll clasped her hands and stared up at the image of Light, "what dose that mean Dr.?"

Dr. Light flickered again as he looked down at her, "it appears that I am Dr. Light but at the same time I am only an attempt by the device to complete its purpose. The device has combined my last message with the incomplete neural replication. I am in essence I thinking message."

Rock stood up from his chair, "Dr. light. What should I do?" that was all it took for the hologram to began acting like Light. Life for the small household returned to a somewhat normal fashion. Roll cleaned the house while Rush chased around mets, Rock spent most his time in the lab. He was now Light's hands; the hologram of light would lead Rock thru every step of a project.

Years began to slide away from the house and its rather strange family. Rock and Roll never left the home anymore and Dr. Lights discoveries and inventions where sent out by transfer device. The world began to forget Megaman because Wily had disappeared without a trace and Megaman was never seen anymore.

One day Rock was interpreted from his recharge by Light, Light had had a stroke of pure inspiration. The next days where spent with Light and Rock locked in the lab, Rock only left to recharge and then only if he could wait no longer. Roll became concerned, the last time this had happened Light had had a serous accident.

Finally Rock stopped coming out of the lab, he had begun recharging his system even as he worked. Roll had nothing better to do so she went about her daily chores. Rush spent his time tearing at the door but Rock had made the door invulnerable after the last time Roll and Rush had torn it down.

The first month passed and then the second and Roll and Rush still hadn't heard from Rock or Light. After the fifth month Roll abandoned her housework and just sat outside the door, waiting. She and rush began spending days at a time there before dragging themselves off to recharge.

The eleven months after the door first closed the house and everything in it was covered in dust and cobwebs. Even Roll and Rush where covered in dust as they sat before the door. Rush had stopped moving at all several months back and Roll only dragged herself back to recharge because she couldn't bring herself to abandon Rock and Light. She didn't even know if he or Light where still active but she couldn't do anything else.

Six months after Rush had stopped functioning Roll was walking from her recharge chamber back to her seat by the lab door. She was just sitting down when the wall of the house exploded inward. Roll was knocked back against the lab door as a large form walked into the destroyed room.

Roll looked up in horror as a Robot walked in carrying a small tank. The robot was covered in guns and spikes, looking like the worst weapons of war blended into one giant machine. What was truly disconcerting was what was in the tank. In the tank floated Wily's head, connected to many different cables and small devices.

Roll couldn't even scream as the robot raised its arm and unleashed its full power on the lab door. Roll was instantly vaporized but the door refused to give in to the constant stream of power. The door began to glow and the wall peeled away until only the armor underneath showed.

Wily's head uttered a long stem of profanities and shouted another command to his robot. The robot placed the tank in the ground and walked forward, still firing, when it was only a foot from the door it drew back the hand that had been carrying the tank and swung it down.

The door began to dent with every strike but still refused to give. Finally as the robot's armor had begun to melt from its own destructive power the door shattered. Shards of white hot metal flew in every direction piercing the robot and destroying the walls around it.

The smoke cleared and the robot still stood, it was melted and severely damaged but it still stood. It turned back and picked up the tank containing Wily's head. The robot carried the tank into the lab. Everything inside was damaged from the violent entry. Only one thing stood in the room unharmed, Light's hologram pod.

The robot stepped forward and places the tank on the ground. The tank rose up on four thin robotic legs and approached the pod. As it reached the field protecting the pod it simply walked thru it as if it wasn't there. It reached the pod and Wily began examine the device.

After a few moments the pod activated and Light's hologram flickered into the air above Wily in his tank. Light looked down at Wily and gave a small grin, "hello Wily. I expected you would come back soon enough. However you're to late. I sent Megaman away with my research the moment you tried to enter the lab. And because of this you have nothing to steal."

Wily laughed and used a robotic arm to begin removing panels on the side of the pod. He looked up at Light as he clamped wires from his own tank into the pod, "no doctor I have everything I want right here. I want you, or more accurately I want your mind and every idea it could come up with."

Wily began downloading Dr. Light's many files, starting with his most recent projects. He looked up the data screen when Light began to laugh. "You wont find my mind Wily. This pod will self-destruct in a few seconds and everything in it will be lost."

Wily said nothing as he looked back at the Data screen. He grinned and simply continued to work, already done stealing Light's current projects. He looked up at the hologram and grinned, "you could never bluff Light. You wouldn't destroy yourself just to stop me. You have no desire to see death anymore than I do. That is why you made this pod."

Light's face took on a dire expression, "Wily I can't bluff because I never have. This pod will self-destruct but I already have hundreds spread around the world hidden from everything. This one pod will self-destruct as will any pod that you tamper with. I can simply transfer myself to another pod before this one self-destructs. I suggest you step outside the field before it dose. Goodbye Wily. I hope you find peace before your end."

The hologram shutdown and the pod began humming loudly. Wily's tank scrambled back, ripping the wires from the pod. He just made it past the field as the pod began to melt. The pod glowed white-hot and sank down into the floor, the puddle of metal stopped at the field and ate down into the floor.

Wily began swearing but stopped as he looked at the plains on his screen. He grinned as his robot cared his tank away. He may not have gotten all of Light's plains but he did get the pains for the most complex robot he had ever seen.

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Megaman stood up beside the last pod; it had only taken a few days to place the pods. He was tired and he missed Roll and Rush, he knew they where dead now but he couldn't believe he had abandoned them, not only to the robot but also before that. He had forgotten them and now he couldn't make it up to them or himself.

Dr. Light spent most his time programming the pods to begin building several new devices. Megaman slid down in the snow beside the pod and starred out at the dark sky. Light's hologram flickered to life beside him, "Megaman. I have one last task for you. I want you to guard our last project, the one we left in the pod buried down under the lab. I know you want to rest, rest from the fighting and destruction but you need to protect the world. The best way for you to do that is to sleep now."

Light looked down at Megaman and smiled, "you are the son I never had. This pod is for you. Climb inside and rest now, if you are needed I will wake you. Rest now and hope you wont need to return to the fight." Megaman didn't say a single word as he climbed inside the pod.

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Centuries later Megaman X walked along a snowy landscape, he had found a few pods from Dr. Light. Every one had helped him save the world and now he was searching for another. He had heard rumors from a few reploids that worked on artic recon of a strange device that was bared deep under the ice. The device only showed on high frequency scanners when the recon droids had found a strange bubble of air under the ice.

The device was left where it was because it was a single device of unknown quality and most of the resources where spent a few miles away excavating a large laboratory base that was much closer to the surface. X had wanted to get away from hunting for a while so he decided to travel the world. He had been near Greenland when he heard of the strange device.

So here he was trudging across miles of ice following a GPS signal. Finally he stopped above the signal, he looked down at the ground and then checked his X-buster. He pointed his X-buster at the ice and began firing a stream of fire.

Hours later and a few hundred few down X stopped and sat down on the floor of the tunnel he had been melting. He had turned slowly making a spiraling path down into the ice. He hoped that the pod, if that was what it was, was worth this. His helmet beeped that he had a message.

He ignored the message because it wasn't labeled emergency, he didn't what anything to do with the world right now. He stood up and began working on the tunnel again. Soon he was only a few feet from the signal, he stopped as his weapon ran out of energy. He kicked the ice in frustration; he hadn't thought that it would take so much energy to get so deep.

He sat down on the ice again and began digging thru the pack he had brought with him. He found a small red and blue orb near the bottom and quickly swallowed it. He looked at his weapon meter as it raised a few notches. He didn't want to use the teleporter because it wouldn't be the first time someone traced his signal and come to drag X back.

He only had his current weapons because he had transferred back to the base under a different identity code. He had slipped thru the base under a ragged cape and an ancient black and gold fined helmet. He had slunk into his storage locker and physically pulled on his current armor and weapons.

He grinned as he thought of passing Zero in the halls and Zero didn't give him a second glance. X decided to keep the helmet and cape if only because it would let him escape Zero occasionally. His grin spread even wider as his fire finally revealed a slightly shimmering field.

X focused his beam and began melting himself a hole in the ice. He could pass thru the field easily; he had done so often enough in the past. He knew this was a pod from Dr. Light because he could now see it thru the mist of evaporating water.

X stopped his beam and climbed thru the small hole and looked at this newest pod. He knew it would contain a weapon or armor or something that Light thought he might need but he didn't care about that. He wouldn't have cared if the pods where empty, he would much rather talk to Dr. Light. He knew the pods only had a recording but it was enough to hear anything from this man who wanted peace and was more than willing to fight to keep it. X respected Light because even though he wanted and hoped for the best he made sure to be ready for the worst.

X stepped up to the pod and pressed the single glowing button. After a moment he pressed it again but still nothing happened. He learned forward and tried rubbing the frost from the cover but the inside was dark and X couldn't see what was inside. Suddenly the familiar hologram of Light snapped on, half of it inside the ice.

Light looked down at X and gave that gentle smile that he always did, "X. I didn't know if you would find this pod. I put it here because it was vital that it wasn't found by anyone. I wasn't even sure if you should open it. Inside this pod is your fate, when you open this pod what inside of it will study you."

X was shocked to say the least but just listened as Light kept speaking, "I wasn't sure if you would be able to make the right decisions. That is why I put you in that stasis pod but I needed to be sure that you where stable after that. You where the only one who could pass thru the fields but just to be sure this pod scanned to make sure it was you. I wanted you to be safe in the world but I also wanted the world to be safe from you. I made the weapons and armors to protect you from the world, I have in this pod something to protect the world from you if you hadn't turned out the way I hoped."

X backed up to the ice around the pod wondering if Dr. Light had some kind of weapon inside ready to destroy him if he wasn't perfect. Light hologram flickered and his smile widened a bit, "don't worry X, I don't think you would want to harm the world. I had to be ready because you could have chosen to do whatever you wanted, even destroy everything. This was my only solution to that, inside this pod is probably the only thing that could ever match your full potential. The only thing that I could trust to do exactly what needed done without emotional consequences. I hope you pass the test X, I really do."

The hologram faded and the pod began to creak open. A light mist raised out of it obscuring whatever was within. X stepped back to the opening in the ice, he was honestly scared. If this thing was a match for his full potential then this would be one of the toughest battles of his life.

The mist cleared and a small figure was sitting up within the pod. X stepped forward without realizing it. The small figure looked up, it was nothing more than a boy perhaps a teenager. He had tousled brown hair and was well muscled under his t-shirt and shorts. The boy was looking at X with a pair of large blue eyes; X looked into those eyes and saw nothing. X stood still as the boy climbed from the pod, the boy didn't seam to notice the chill. That was when it finally occurred to X that this wasn't a boy, it was a drone.

The drone was simply staring at X, and X was wondering what it would do. After a few minutes X decided to leave the icy cave and get back somewhere he could warm up. The drone followed him back up the tunnel and out into the snow and wind. X began walking off towards the outstation he had come from earlier. He turned back and looked at the drone, it may only be a stupid machine but cold probably wasn't good for it.

X stopped and spent a few moments studying the drone, most drones he knew had little or no intellect except for the task they where made to do. But most drones where built by Dr. Light, or made to judge X and if necessary destroy him. X held his chin in thought while the drone stood there and studied him. X found those blank staring eyes very unnerving.

He was worried that the drone would decide he wasn't however Light had meant him to be. If that was the case than X was responsible for every maverick in the world, even sigma. X shuddered with the thought that he could be the reason for so much destruction and pain. He decided he should find somewhere and talk to the drone before returning to head quarters.

Before he started walking again he pulled thru his pack and handed the tattered cape to the drone and started walking again. His peripheral sensors told him the drone had put the cape on and was still following him. He decided that maybe the cold wasn't so bad if the drone wasn't having any trouble with it. It was only one hundred and thirty below freezing.

X walked thru the snow and debated whether or not he should call for a transfer or even if the drone had a transfer device. He could see the small outstation ahead and again checked again to see if the drone was still behind him. It didn't seam to have any trouble keeping up with the stiff pace that X set.

X stepped inside the small outstation, it wasn't anymore than a satellite monitoring station but it was heated and had a treasurer booster pad. The only reploid on call spent most his time playing games and letting the drones do everything.

X sank down in a chair near a heating unit and so did the drone. The drone removed the cape and handed it back to X. X hung the damp cape over a chair and sat there wondering what to say.

The reploid at the base came into the room and saw X, "hi again stranger. I didn't expect to see you again so soon. I see you found a drone somewhere. Dang man, it looks just like you." The reploid left the room and X looked over the drone again. It did look a lot like him, except it looked so much younger.

The reploid came back again and offered X a cup of energy fluid. X took it and drank it down in a gulp. He thanked the reploid and turned to the droid, "do you need a drink?" the droid titled its head to the side and looked past X's head. It seamed to be listening to something. The reploid left saying something about typical drones.

X had settled back into his chair as the drone sat and listened to what X assumed was an analogy algorithms. The drone finally turned back to face X, "no. I do not require liquefied energy crystals. I gather energy from any direct power conduit the matches my internal signature. I presume that could be modified to use an internal fusion generator that primarily uses liquefied energy crystals."

X hadn't heard many drones speak but those he had usually only spouted reported data. This drone actually spoke as if it possessed intelligent thought; this was past anything X had meet. He looked down at his hands and wondered what else this drone could do. Light had said it could possibly match X's potential, if that was true it had to be more than the drones that worked everywhere.

He picked up his empty glass and rolled it in his hands and thought about the hunter base. He didn't really want to go back and fight but it would be nice to see what Zero and the others thoughts of this. He stood and heads back into a small room where a simple glowing platform waits.

The drone follows him in carrying X's cape, the drone stands beside X on the platform. X presses the coordinates in on the wall panel and waits for the system to warm. He turned and regarded the drone again, "do you have a name?"

The drone looked away from X for the first time, he seamed to be deciding something. He looked back at X and spoke, "my name was Rock. I have also been called MegaMan." X's jaw fell in shock, Light had named this drone after him or rather he was named after this drone. Before X could question Rock the air around them shimmered and they disappeared.

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Well what do you think? I have had limited exposure to the original megaman and megamanX, I'm sure it shows. I have only recently gotten megamanX1 and I never liked the nes games. I first meant this as a oneshot but it doesn't look like it will be now. I may write more I may not.

I could use some help. I need screenshots from the games. Any of the games on any system. If have any or know a URL for a site with them please let me know.

And I say this here and now. X and Zero have the same bodies in the X series as they do in the Zero series. What little differences they have are only because the different artists and the different quality of image (and screen size) between the SNES (and play station) and the Game boy advance.


	2. chapter 2

Here is another chapter. Can you believe that I wanted this to be a one shot? It didn't turn out that way because I got even more ideas after I started writing it so I chopped what I had into a first chapter and started on another. That is why so much happens in the first chapter.

Acorn… why did you have to point that out so soon? I was hoping nobody would notice it so soon. And Rock doesn't have emotions at least in the same way as X or any reploid; don't get upset I should cover why in this chapter. Please just read it before getting upset.

Green. No, Light didn't forget Roll or Rush, but then again it technically wasn't Light. It was a living message. Don't worry ill make it up to you. What do you mean no mention of Zero? I thought I mentioned something about him somewhere, maybe you should check again.

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A blaster from the past C2)

"I don't care if it was built by Light! It isn't fallowing you around all the time!" Zero's reaction wasn't exactly what X had expected when he told him about Rock. The three of them where in the training room. X held the punching bag tighter as Zero began striking harder, obviously upset about the strange drone.

"Calm down Zero. I don't exactly have a chose in the matter. Light said it could possibly match my potential. If that's true I don't think we could stop it easily." X stepped back as Zero thrust his fist thru the bag. X and Zero where in their civilian clothes at the moment. Zero in jeans and a red shirt, X wore black shorts and a blue sleeveless shirt, Rock still wore the same clothes.

Zero ripped his fist out, sending sand across the floor, "it's a drone. It will only get in the way or get blown up. I drone with your power is still only a drone. I bet it cant even keep up with me on the obstacle course." Rock came over from where he had been standing having had heard everything.

Rock stopped beside the tattered bag, "I will race you if you wish but your speed is superior than my own without my armor." Rock had scanned Zero earlier, and every Reploid he had seen so far. Most of them where closely based on the plans for X but there where several errors and inconsistencies. Zero on the other hand seamed to be an innovative alteration of X's intended design.

Zero's hand slipped down to where his saber would have been if he was wearing his armor. This action was unnoticed by the others because X slipped in the lose sand. As he climbed back to his feet he looked at Rock, "you have armor? How? You have been in that pod for a while. Where could you have stored it without it being found or damaged?"

Rock looked out over X's shoulder listening to something again, "it appears that my storage lockers haven't been disturbed but the shielding is in need of repair. I will return." Light surrounded Rock as he transferred away, leaving a confused X and aggravated Zero standing on spilt sand.

Zero turned to X with anger all over his face, "why did you give it a transfer device."

X put his hands out in front of him and backed away, "I didn't give him one, I swear."

X was spared trying to explain something he didn't know anything about by his communicator beeping. He opened his internal COM with a thought, "X sir. We just detected an unknown transfer signal from your location."

Zero had been monitoring the com-line as well, "do you have the signal rerouted to containment?"

The Reploid on the other end of the line didn't answer, as she checked, "No sir the signal cut right thru our transfer shielding and resisted scanning as it passed thru the network. And sirs, I don't have a trace on the signals location."

Zero cut the signal and left in his own flash of light. X was left standing on the lose sand. He turned and was going to go when he slipped in the sand again. He looked up at the tall roof and sighed, "my life is just getting more and more complicated."

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Somewhere deep inside the ground was an armored bunker, there was no doors or entrances leading out or in and several rooms hummed with ancient equipment fighting to do its job under inches of dust. In a small room a round platform suddenly flashes to life and a ring raised up from its base lights strobes across the platform. With a flash of white light Rock appeared on the platform. He stepped down from the platform and opened the door into the main area of this vast self-contained environment. Lights began to flicker on as he walked across the floor, dust rising in a cloud behind him.

He never saw the pair of eyes staring out from a dark corner before they leapt at him. A red blur took Rock from his feet and sent them both tumbling across the floor, coating Rock with a thick layer of dust.

He found that he was pined and something slightly wet was being dragged across his face. He opened his eyes expecting a strange robot with a devastating weapon or a wild beast that had gotten in. anything except a red robot dog that was slobbering all over him.

"Rush?" he couldn't believe it. Rush had shutdown while Rock and Light had been working on X and the pods, among a few other things.

"Rush, heel." Rush jumped back from Rock and ran back into the shadows caused by dead lighting elements. Rock pulled himself back to his feet and looked into the shadows.

He knew that voice, never with that tone or abruptness. He found himself hoping this wasn't some cruel trap. He took a step towards the Shadow, stopping dead still as he saw a glow that could only come from the barrel of a charging blaster. "Don't move Rock."

Rock didn't know what was going, he knew that voice but she would never be so hostile to him and he didn't even think she was able to use a buster. "Roll? What's going on? Why are you doing this?"

The Blaster reached a full charge and fired, Rock barely got out of the way as it hit the floor super heating the metal where he just had been. "Why? Why? You want to know WHY!" a flurry of small plasma shots came out of the darkness.

Rock found that every shot was fired with an accuracy almost as well as his own. Several times he felt this skin warm as the plasma came very close to him. Roll kept talking as she shot at him, "you left me. You locked yourself in that lab for so long I thought you had forgotten me. And then you didn't even come back out to save me from Willy."

The shots were very close and could seriously hurt him without his armor but he just couldn't bring himself to hurt Roll. "I wanted to save you but Light said it was more important to get the pods out so Willy couldn't get them."

The Shots paused but only a moment, "and what about leaving me out there in the first place. Even if I couldn't help I could have come in and talked to you while you worked. You abandoned me. Rush might not care now that your back but I do."

Rock rolled behind a dusty writing desk just before another charged blast struck it, shoving it and Rock along in a tumble of burnt wood and bruises. He untangled himself and began to stand when a fist in his back dove him back down.

He felt the buster pushed against his neck and wondered for a moment if his backup memory chips still worked. If she shot him he may not be coming back from it if those chips had decayed any. "I should shoot you right now. I never understood why you where so freaked out when you got rebuilt the first time." She pushed the buster a little harder; "I reacted the same way the first time. And the second and third as well."

Even when the Blaster was pulled back he didn't move until a toe under his shoulder rolled him over. He blinked, and then again and then rubbed his eyes at what he saw. Roll was standing over him with a buster pointing at his head. He knew she was using a buster but he had thought it was one of his old ones; instead it was a slimmer red one. And she wore matching armor too.

He began to sit up but laid back as she narrowed her eyes. Her armor looked like his except a bit trimmer and made in shades of red and pink. Her helmet had a shorter neck guard that let her hair down her neck and over her shoulders. The big difference between his armor and hers was that hers and a mask guard that was currently pushed up on her forehead.

After a long silence during witch Rock thought she might fire the growing charge from her blaster she relaxed. Her hand reformed from inside her buster after the charged energy disappeared. She offered her reformed hand to Rock.

He took it a little hesitantly and she pulled him to his feet, before driving a knee into his groin and letting him fall again. "That was for forgetting me." When he was finally able to stand again she had disappeared and he could see no tracks in the dust to say where she had gone.

He walked, or limped, down the hallway and into the one room that was dust free. He dropped into a chair before the main lab console and entered his access commands. The console was even more impressive than the one back in the old lab. He wasn't much for coming up with anything himself but he could improve any existing design. Strangely much of MegamanX's mental constructs came from the incident that made Light more than a recording but less than human and for this reason X could actually think in original terms weather they where defined by logic or emotion.

Rock put his feet up on the console and leaned back. He started to think of how he felt abandoning Rush and Roll. His logic told him Light's research was more important than his friends but because he was built to simulate emotions part of him was twisted in aguish over leaving them. At several times in his long life he had considered asking Light why those simulated emotions felt so strong sometimes, but every time he was distracted, often enough by Willy tiring to take over the world.

Finally the computer screen flickered to life and he began entering routines for the countless robots around the incredibly vast compound. He hunched forward and began checking various charts that came and went with his flickering fingers and clicking keys.

Finally as everything was underway to put everything in the compound back to a state of order he pulled up history logs. Light had assured Rock that the world wouldn't pass him by as he slept and sure enough there where condensed info logs for nearly the entire time he was gone.

He trimmed over everything, noting that Willy was never heard from again and that much of the world stayed in a state of prosperity for a long time. The information logs said that technology was on a decline, a slow one but even now the modern technology level was a good deal below the normal before Rock had gone into status.

War. Prosperity ended with war, several wars fallowed by others. Rock didn't bother thinking he could have helped, they where human wars and he would have made no difference being there. It interested him that a Doctor Cain was the one that had found X. Cain was a botanist/ archeologist but had managed to discover enough about X to make the initial blueprints for the first reploids.

Finally his emotions overrode logic, he started searching for information on Roll. A while later he was ready to call Light and ask him what was going on. Every file he found that had anything to do with Roll, and there were more than he would have thought, was encoded and marked classified. It was imposable. His clearance was right below Light's and could only be locked if Light thought them unsuitable for anyone to see. Rock hadn't even read all his own files because Light thought they might upset him.

"Interesting reading?" Rock turned around and found Roll leaning against the open door. She could clearly see what was on the screen, "so you're wondering what happened? Well to bad for you. I'm the only one who has the passwords for those files and I don't want you to see them." With that she turned and went down the hall.

Rock got up and started after her, only to be tackled to the ground as Rush came jumping in the door. A good twenty minutes later Rock finally calmed Rush down enough that Rush would let him back to his feet. Barking and running around him Rush was happier than Rock would have thought he would be.

When Rock went out into the hall Rush bit his hand, not hard but just enough to get a grip and begin pulling him. Rock let Rush pull him down the hall and up stairs and finally back down into a small section where Light had insisted on building living quarters.

This was the first time Rock had ever been in the compound let alone this section. The first door was plainly Rush's with a computerized doggy door build into the larger, but this wasn't where Rush was leading him. They passed a door covered in blast marks, some very old but others still fresh. Remembering his welcome back he could guess that this was his room and that Roll had been decorating his door for a long time.

Rock could see other doors down the hall but they all had seals locking the doorframes. Rush stopped and released his hand Rock looked up at the door and involuntary took a step back. Drawn on the door was a crude drawing of him in his armor with various injuries, some of them he had suffered before and knew they hurt much more than they looked. And there stamped across his face in big red letters, 'GO AWAY MEGAMAN!'

He turned to leave but found Rush blocking his way growling. "Rush I cant do this now. She needs to calm down first and then I can talk to her." Even as he said it he knew it was wrong, she had had a long time to think. So much time that she probably was past calm and right into homicidal.

"I think you should start now." Light's image flickered into being over Rush's back where a small holograph projector had extended. "It took me quite a few years before she even began to trust me again, and even to do that I had to make her that armor. She wanted it and she watched you enough to know how to use it, even before her missions."

Rock knew better than to ask what missions but he had a lot of questions still. "What is going on Doctor? I'm glad you brought her and Rush back but why so long before I woke?"

"Because he needed information he couldn't get from hacking computer nets." Rock turned around expecting a blaster aimed at his face but he found Roll out of her armor. His eyes nearly popped from his head. She looked older, not a lot but enough to have become more than a girl. His eyes roamed over her shapely form under her coveralls before returning to her face. If his face could have paled it would have been a new shade of white.

She stood with her arms crossed under her breasts and glared at him until he thought he might like the blaster pointing at his face instead. She actually smiled at his expression, not the sweet smile he remembered but a predatory smile. "Dr. Light rebuilt me after you had been in stasis for a few weeks. He made me like I was before but I refused to put in stasis. So after a few years stuck down here I got board, Light saw this and asked me if I wanted to do some scouting. I said yes and went out into the world looking at people and find things that he didn't find online."

She held up her hand and with a small flash of light her blaster arm was there, "after I was blown apart by a mob protesting one of the wars Light rebuilt me again and gave me a set of armor made from one of your old ones. When a came back again nearly torn to shreds I told him to make me my own, it had some nice functions yours doesn't. And when I woke up on the recovery table again I told him I wanted a new body, he didn't want to but after I destroyed a few of his computers he did it just the way I wanted with new armor to go with it. I haven't been blown up since."

"Well yes that is what happened." Light looked very uncomfortable. "I didn't feel it was save to wake you from your stasis until X had been activated. And I couldn't find anyone else to do scouting so I asked Roll. I'm sorry for the pain it caused you Roll." Roll snorted at Light's apology. Rock wondered who the Doctor had wanted to do the scouting.

Rock's internal communicator beeping interrupted the rather tense conversation. He checked the signature wondering who in this time knew it, the only markings where an energy signature that was only X's. "Hello X. how did you find my communicator address?"

Roll went back into her room and Rush jumped in the closing door, leaving Rock with his new mission. "Actually I found it in a history log and gave it a try." Rock could hear the laughter in the background. "Ok, ok. I found it in a Childs story book." Rock was smiling for the first time in what felt ages, and actually was.

"So just a quick question, where are you? Our scanners can't even tell if you are using a COM, let alone where you're at." Rock's smile slipped. If their sensors where even on half the capabilities of the ones from his age they would be swarming all over the compound.

"You or anyone else doesn't have any right to be anywhere near here. You will stop scanning immediately and never attempt to find it again." he could hear the anger in his own voice and was wondering what X's reaction would be. He had been pretending to be a simple drone so that they might lower their guard and he had just told them he wasn't.

"You listen here you chunk of scrap. That is MegamanX you are talking to and leader of the Maverick Hunters. He has saved the world twice already and you will treat him accordingly." Rock didn't know who the voice was and didn't really care.

Rock was trying to ignore his emotions but they where much more powerful than logic at the moment. "Listen up whoever you are. I don't care what he leads; he could lead a pack of lemmings off a cliff for all I care at the moment. He only saved the world twice? I wager that children's storybook had enough of what I have done to make your world seam a fluffy bunny filled dream. So when I decide to speak I will speak how I wish to whoever I wish."

Rock cut the communication and changed his contact code before walking all the way back to the main lab console. Once there he checked the repair progress and left again. This time he headed upwards, up and up past doors and large equipment bays, past hangers of plains and jeeps. He finally stopped at an elevator at the top floor, he pressed his palm against the doors and could feel the scanners as they checked everything.

Once inside the doors shut with a click and he typed an impossibly long code into a control panel. Finally the elevator began to move, going down, down past all the floors he had climbed up down past the main floor and even deeper then before. Even Rock had no idea just where this compound was but he knew it was deep under ground. Finally the elevator stopped again and he had to enter another long code before the doors would open.

Stepping inside the elevators snapped shut with a clang that echoed around the small space. There was nothing here except plain cement walls and his sensors and every other sensor ever made would say that there was nothing but stone for miles around. He hated this part but it was the one thing no intruder would ever think of trying.

Taking a deep, if unneeded, breath, "I am little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle and here is my spout. When I get all steamed up and give a shout tip me over and pore me out." As he finished the little chant and dance he couldn't help but shudder. Sometimes he wondered if Light did that just for a laugh.

The elevator behind him opened again and another hidden door on the back wall opened, reviling a room full to the ceiling with smaller versions of Lights pods. It was a disorganized mess, just how he liked it. He walked in and started pushing pods aside and looking inside others. He smiled as Light flickered into existence in a corner, "I never did understand how a robot could stand being disorganized. But I knew that if I tried sorting hem you would just mix them all up in short while."

Rock didn't answer as he was trying not to have a tall stack of pods fall on him. Light went on speaking but was smiling as several pods fell on Rock. "You don't actually need to put on your armor anymore. I adapted this centuries personal transport system to work for you. You will have to select what weapons you want to take before leaving the base and come back to change them but other than that you can transfer into and out of your armor."

Rock pushed a red pod off his head, "thanks Dr. Light." After the doctors hologram disappeared he spent a few minutes thinking what weapons he would likely use. In the end he decide on nothing except a few handy Items. X had most of Rock's functions already and even a few things incorporated from devices that Rock had found useful. Rock could ask Light to integrate them into him but he already had a perfect understanding of these as they where.

Leaving the room and making the long journey back to the main chamber he stopped outside the transfer room. He had expected at least Rush to come see him off, or probably try coming with him, but the only things moving nearby was cleaning robots sweeping up the dust. He gave a sigh and went into the transfer room, to find a small box sitting there.

He opened the box and found a note sitting on a pink ribbon. 'Don't get blown apart Mega. I don't know what I would do if I lost you. At least before I tore you apart myself.' He smiled and folded the note up before tying the ribbon around it. With the note and ribbon in his pocket he stepped on the transfer pad and vanished in flash of light.

* * *

X was in his office reading reports and signing documents needing his approval. He hated doing paperwork but could never bring himself to skirt his duty like Zero did. Thinking of Zero mad his pen pause over another paper. Zero was his closet friend and he was glad he was back from the dead but whenever Rock was around or mentioned it was like he was someone else.

Rock. Now that was a problem waiting to happen. He had thought Rock was just a drone because of his unresponsive attitude but now he knew that Rock wasn't just a drone, and unfortunately so did everyone else. Rock had returned, transferring right into a meeting about him that was supposed to have been transfer shielded.

That had set off an entire episode with the human government and his base commanders. They had spent the last of that meeting shouting at X and Rock about security protocols and clearance. X groaned as he remembered Rocks response, "I have clearance higher than any of you." Rock wouldn't say another word after that about anything.

Well not another word until the base commanders called for the research scientists to come and take Rock for study. That was a disaster. Rock had disabled six different reploid researchers, without any weapons of his own, and avoided every attempt to corner and scan him. The research division had taken it as a personal challenge and where now hunting for Rock throughout the entire Hunter HQ.

X was still a little surprised that Rock had been able avoid them so far. X and Zero often had trouble getting away from the researchers and usually only got away because they had work to do. And somehow Rock was avoiding every one of the hundreds of scientists and researchers, without even calling his armor. X was trying to decide if he should ask Rock to teach him how to get away.

He finally wrote his signature on the page before him. He still couldn't believe no one had tried forging it, it was after all just an x. he pulled another form in front of him, reading it briefly before signing it. He thought he might actually finish the stack of forms on his desk when his office door opened and in walked Rock.

He looked at the door for long moments expecting a swarm of researchers with scanners and tools made from reploids nightmares to come in after Rock. When it was apparent that they weren't coming he turned his attention back to Rock, who had sat down in the only other chair in the room.

"You need to tell me how you are able to escape them like that. I can't walk down a hall in my armor without one of them trying to make off with my buster." X dropped his pen and looked, honestly looked at the strange robot before him. Robot being a strange word he found was used before reploids where made. Drones now where much like old robots but for some reason Rock was just different.

"Isn't hard. They never look up." Rock ran his fingers through his hair, a motion that X realized he had just done and one he often did. Did that mean that rock was emulating him or that it was just a random trait they both had.

Rock never took his eyes away from anything unless it was to stare just as hard at something else. Just then the door opened and Zero walked in with his classic swagger, he stopped when he saw the stacks of papers and the pen sitting near them, "I just remembered. I have to go test some new busters for the R&D."

Zero turned to go only to find that Rock, who he hadn't noticed was in the room, was leaning against the doorframe and blocking Zero's escape. "I don't much like paper work either. Care for that race now?"

Something about the way Rock spoke just didn't strike X as right. He spoke with the tone and facial expressions of someone vaguely amused but it didn't seam right. Almost as if drawing his attention to what it was Rock blinked one of his few infrequent blinks. Rock's eyes were blank. There was no other word, they were intelligent and had seen great and terrible things but the emotions in his voice or face never touched his eyes.

"Maybe. A race would be nice but how about something a little more intense." X blinked at Zero. He was growing used to Zero's seaming distaste of Rock but this was like Zero couldn't decide whether to jest or jibe.

"You mean a bit of sparing? I'm sure it would be interesting. But I think maybe you should go finish your paper work." And with that Rock turned and went out the door, making sure it closed before Zero could fallow.

Zero went to open the door but X cleared his throat. "I think Rock just went to test those blasters for the R&D. so pull up that chair and give me a hand." Zero groined as he caught the pen X tossed him.

* * *

There you go chapter two. I'm not sure what ill do in chapter 3, probably a bit of sparing between Rock and Zero but who knows.

This chapter may end up getting rewritten later.

See there Acorn. He dose have emotions but they aren't emotions in the same sense as repliods or humans. He has an emotional processor that emulates human emotions while defying logic. Emotion versus logic. Whatever is stronger is often what is used but just like in people emotions can be over powered by logic, and vise versa.

Later


	3. chapter 3

What'd know, another unplanned (even less than normal) chapter.

So who liked Roll becoming the traumatized teenager searching for someone to blame? And that someone just happens to be Rock. I did it because its fun to write her that way, and I don't know her personality at all. In all the megaman games she has what? Four lines?

Yak, yak and Blah, Blah… Go read.

* * *

A blaster from the past C3)

Rock walked down the hall with a grin on his face. The grin slipped as map of glowing lines was imposed over his vision. A large cluster of purple dots were traveling towards him from three diffract directions. He had taped into the security sensors of the Hunter HQ so that he would have a warning when any of the research scientists came towards him.

He looked around for a place to hide; specifically the ceiling and walls, only to find he had came into a narrow hall with no ornamentation and no removable ceiling tiles. Before he had scaled the walls or climbed into the ceiling to avoid being sited but now he was cornered and had no time to run.

Sure enough around a corner came a reploid in a long white coat and holding a decidedly nasty looking kind of screwdriver. He had just enough time to regret that Light hadn't perfected a personal cloaking device before both ends of the hallway where packed with scientists holding a variety of strange and viscous looking tools.

It was a staring match currently and Rock had a much better poker face. After several long moments a pale haired scientist raised his scanner and pulled the trigger. Rock felt the invisible waves of energy as they passed over his skin and were absorbed before they could bounce back. In a flash of light Rock had his buster on his arm and his hand folding away.

There where now dozens of different scanners trying to penetrate his skin. He took aim and fired seven shots of white-hot plasma; every shot hit and destroyed a scanner. The reploids didn't act the least bit surprised that he had attacked, they were far to busy scanning the destroyed scanners for plasma signatures.

Rock shifted his stance ready to leap over them but his movement pulled their attention back to him. He saw scanners disappear under lab coats only to be replaced with more of those frightening tools of torture and discovery. As one every scientist came at him swarming over him and hiding him from sight.

In a flash of bright light he burst from under the repiolds and ran down the hall clad in his body hugging blue armor. He felt scanning waves pass over him and saw thrown tools embed themselves deep into the walls as he ran.

Five hallways later and with more fear than he had ever felt fighting Willy's robots he was cornered in a large cubicle filled room. Some of the scientists had gotten their own armor, made for research more than fighting but looking scarier than anything Rock could remember.

"Come quietly and it will be easier on you." A female reploid was out front of all the others. Her armor was blue and purple and her buster had been replaced with a frightening tool arm ending in several scalpels and probes. Rock hated those armors, they stood nearly two heads taller than him but without that armor most these reploids would be only slightly taller than him. Prompting him to wonder why Light hadn't made him a bit taller, but at least X was only a taller by a few inches.

"I know you can speak Rock so think about your chooses. You can come with us or you can be dragged off and dissected until we know everything about you. It is your chouse and we weren't given any stipulations concerning your condition afterwards." Her eyes where a very hypnotic shade of purple but Rock wanted to watch her science-buster even more.

"Alright I go with you on a few conditions." Rock knew he could have gotten free but that would involve destroying them. And while he didn't care overly he didn't really need to and it would only make his job here harder.

His hand extended from his arm and unfolded, he saw that every eye watched it as it seamed to expand outward from nothing. He held up a finger, "first I must approve any tests." Another finger rose, "I reserve the right to remove any data you find or restrict its access." And then another finger, "I will have access to any and all files available from any public, private or governmental computers or faculties."

He could hear the grinding as they tried to close their jaws. "We might give you the first one, if this was a matter of barging. But the other two we cant give to anybody, especially a robot with a back-history that can only be found in children's stories." The repliod woman in blue and purple armor was the only one actually giving him any chouse in the matter.

Rock leaned back against the wall behind him and crossed his arms before his chest. "This is a matter of barging. I could simply disable all you, and probably receive some dame while doing it, or I could simply destroy you. So if you cant provide me with those conditions you should find someone who can, or you will never get a chance to study me."

Most of the scientists where getting aggravated, he could tell because they kept pulling out even bigger scarier looking tools. "And what's to stop us from just getting X to order you to go?" Rock was beginning to get annoyed with this purple eyed replied, she was too intelligent.

"Go right ahead. I don't receive commands from him. In actuality I could command him, if he would listen that is. Now I simply must bid you all farewell." He could hear their snickering and someone in back actually burst out in a baying laugh. Ha gave a short bow and everything erupted in chaos.

He had used his bow as a cover for drawing a small red cub with a 2 on it from his belt and tossing it out at shoulder height. The repliods must have thought it was an attack and dodged aside, while Rock's jet sled unfolded. He leapt on it as the boosters flared on and carried him over the shocked and confused scientists.

Suddenly the jet sled gave a lurch and slammed into the cement wall, dragging Rock and it along in a shower of sparks and flying cement. After twisting the protesting sled back away from the wall and looked back at what has caused that shift in flight.

He found the purple-eyed reploid had sunk several of her science-busters scalpels and probes into his jet sled as it passed by her. She was now hanging onto the sled for dear life and looking up at him like she wasn't sure weather to be intrigued or mad. Her helmet had fallen off during the grind along the wall letting her short blue hair whip around her face as they all flew down the hallways.

Rock leaned the sled into every corner, hopping to shake her free but she clung even harder and started swearing load enough to hear of the roar of the jets and air pulling at her face. Rock looked at his velocity and fuel gauges and then checked his map of the HQ before taking another turn, purposely grinding along the wall.

He swung out into an indoor courtyard with a small pond and a few benches and tipped the nose of the sled down, skimming along the ground before stopping. He looked back and saw the purple-eyed reploid begin to release her grip, when she had he kicked the sled up into his arms and checked the damage. It was minor and would repair itself before to long, the sled folded in on itself until it was once again a small red cub with a white 2 on the side.

"I will study that." Rock looked up in time to get a hit with a ball of crackling yellow energy. Rock struggled against the restraining energy net while she griped the ground and forced herself to breathe calmly. "What a ride. What do you call that device?"

Rock pulled at the net and tried to push it away but couldn't move it at all. Stopping his pointless struggle he glared at the repliod woman. "Its called Item two. It is a jet sled, a creative and useful alteration to an ancient sport called skate boarding. So who is asking?"

She didn't respond until a new probe had come out of her science-buster and removed the Item2 cube from his belt. "My name is Akako" she fell silent as she started to scan the jet sled. Rock knew that she would be getting a reading from it if it wasn't touching him but the sled didn't matter. The sled was after all just a chunk of aerodynamic alloy with high-powered thrust jets that collapsed in on itself for storage.

"Akako? Red child? Strange name for a purple and blue reploid. So I don't suppose you would let me go if I let you scan the others." She pocketed the sled and reached back trough the energy net and withdrew another of the cubes, this one labeled with a 1.

"How do you activate these? There are no buttons and I'm not detecting any kind of digital receiver." Akako was probing at the cube with her scalpel as if considering cutting it open and then rebuilding it.

"It works on a hard electric signal transmitted through my armor and into the surface by direct contact. I would threaten you but I don't think it would be that intimidating while trapped in this net." She smiled at his joke, pathetic as it was. She must have tried activating the item then because it started to unfold only to jam while little more than a twisted ball of red.

"What happened?" Akako dropped the item as it started twitching in her hand; it folded back in on itself after hitting the ground. She ground her teeth and reached though the energy net again, taking the last red cube.

Rock smiled as he changed the absorbing flux of his armor, absorbing the energy in the net and reducing it to little more than flimsy thread. He had been scanning her science-buster while she reached for the cubes and had finally locked on the neutralization frequency.

She was involved in trying to get any of the cubes to open and hadn't even noticed that her energy net had stopped humming. She pulled the jet sled back out and tried unfolding it only to have it and the other two cubes pulled from her hands. She looked up into the humored face of Rock, "I don't stay caught long. Now I really must go."

Rock jumped to a bench and withdrew the item1 cube, it split into three in his hand and he tossed the first into the air. As her leapt on the floating platform he tossed another and then another after that. The first platform begin to collapse but the propellers stayed long enough to propel the half folded platform up to Rock who caught it and tossed it again.

Akako watched in amazement as he walked on stepping-stones across air, gracefully keeping one platform always in front of his foot even as he leapt towards it. He reached the top wall of the courtyard and caught the flying platforms and let them fold back into one small cube. She thought she saw him smile before he turned and walked out of sight on the roof.

* * *

Akako walked back towards the lower levels of Hunter HQ, towards the R&D department and her office. She ran into her fellow researchers as they had fallowed her signal hoping she was still with him. After telling them what had happened and getting her helmet from someone who had grabbed it for her she continued down to her office.

She looked at the long scrape along her helmet and knew even without looking that her side was covered in scrapes as well. She sight and transferred her armor away, dropping down almost a foot in height without breaking stride. She waved her hand at the security scanner to open the doors into the science laboratories.

Inside there was a vast array of rooms, each one specializing in a different field of research, the entire science laboratories took up two floors and a better part of a half-kilometer underground. She passed down hallways walled in glass, seeing untended projects or assistants gathering information while the older researchers where out hunting Rock.

She sighed as she paused at a room with only one large wall screen. On the screen was a schematic of MegaManX, or at least part of a schematic. Everything they knew about X was up on that wall and it still was mostly incomplete. She turned and passed another room just like the last without more than a glance. Zero wasn't as complex as X, still mostly incomprehensible but not on the same level as X. "I wonder if we will need a new screen for Rock?"

She kept on walking farther into the maze of knowledge and mystery. She thought of the little bit of information she had gotten on Rock's jet sled. She could probably recreate the sled with little trouble but the physical compression was intriguing. It was like how Rock's hand folds away, or X's and Zero's for that matter. Their hands folded away to nothing while most other reploid's hands will only be drawn inside the buster.

She tapped in her access code and stepped into her office. When the lights didn't come automatically on she reached for the switch along the wall. With a click light filled her office, showing Rock sitting at her desk with his feet up on a stack of folders. He wasn't in his armor anymore but she knew he could call it again instantly.

She didn't move for a moment as she watched him turn something over in his hands. "Akako. You didn't say you were the head of reverse engineering. I suppose that you still haven't reached above seventy four percent comprehension regarding X's configuration and abilities?"

He sat a small sparkling crystal on the desk before him that she recognized immediately. "That's an old three dimensional data storage crystal, we haven't been able to recreate them and our current ones are beginning to fail. How did you get one?"

He picked up a folder and started flipping pages, Akako had to keep herself from tearing it from his hands. "Maybe you should be asking what is on it and what it will take for me to give it to you." Rock picked up a pen from the desk and started writing in the folder, his hand streaking across the page.

She couldn't restrain herself any longer, she stepped closer and tore the folder from his hands and slapped the pen from his fingers. "Don't disturb my research or I will dismantle you here and now and never put you back together. Do you understand me?"

Rock frowned, sending a shiver down Akako's back as it never reached his blank eyes. "Alright I will not touch any of your research." He stood and reached for the data crystal but paused and left it sitting as he walked out of her office.

The door shut behind him and left her standing there fuming that he would be so bold as to write in one of her project folders. "He could seriously upset the project." She went over to her chair and sat down, felling the indentation he had left and grumbling again. "Not only did he mess with research but he shifted my cushion."

She picked the pen up off the floor and opened the folder, ignoring the data crystal for now. She went to rub out the fist line of his hard angular writing when she saw what he had wrote. She dropped her pen and started reading what he had put down and examining what he had crossed out. She opened her communication and called the project leader for the folder.

"Hideaki drop what you're doing and get back to your lab. Ill be sending you an updated project plan, it isn't fully competed but I want you to try it. Now. If this pans out we might finish the prototype in a few weeks." Her eyes were stuck on the long line leading off the page where the pen had dragged while she pulled the folder from Rock's hands. "I don't care that you're hunting for Rock. Get To WORK!"

* * *

Rock wandered around the impressive, in size not capability, research facility. Apparently no one thought he would come down here while the researchers were hunting him because the entire time he was walking he only saw a few reploids in lab coats that were much to busy with their work to notice him.

He finally walked into a short long room with a row of targets against the far wall. A counter nearby had several different kinds of busters sitting there waiting testing. He picked up the first and scanned it, finding it to be weaker in power than he would like but with a faster reload and fire rate than he had ever seen in a single barrel plasma buster. It had no charge function but the shear speed of the repetitive hits would make the damage from one shot blend into the next. If it could be kept aimed on target it could deliver damage surpassing a supercharge shot in the same time as charging took.

He slipped the buster on over his hand and felt his arm shifting its circuitry into a matching alignment. Raising his arm he watched as his hand folded away and a very slender barrel protruded from his arm. Turning towards the targets he fired a short burst of rapid fire, five shots so close together that they seamed one, left the barrel and struck the first target.

He looked at the target and back at the buster, the aim was severely off, he had missed center by almost a centimeter. He walked over to a bench and picked up a screwdriver, working one handed with the buster on his other he adjusted the barrel alignment until he had it properly positioned and then closed the buster again.

He turned around and almost ran into a very angry looking old man, a human man. "And just what do you think your doing with that buster. You rookies think you can just grab any buster and run off and blow up a maverick. HUMPH you are more likely to blow of your foot, or someone else's. Now give me that buster, I'm waiting for Mr. Zero to come test them for me and adjust the aiming."

Rock looked at the hand the man held out for the buster then back at the targets behind him. He raised the buster and pointed it at the man's face, seeing the color drain and his eyes widen. He shifted his arm and fired, a long strong over shots passing over the man's shoulder and striking deep into the center of a target.

His hand extended and he removed the buster dropping it into the mans still outstretched hand, "this is a nice buster but the power could be increased a bit more or only the best marksmen or infantry will be able to use it to any great effect." He walked over to the table and picked up another buster. "Zero was cornered into doing paper work and sent me to test the busters for him."

He scanned the new buster, finding it almost the exact opposite of the one he had just used. It had a very poor rate of fire and a nearly nonexistent reload speed, however it did have an incredible power level. Its charge rate was high but the interesting thing was the level to witch it could be charged. It charged to full in about the same time as a supper charge but it cared almost twice the power.

He moved over to the workbench and adjusted the barrel to fix the aim before placing it on his arm. He started charging and studied the man, who had recovered from his fright and was studying him just as intently. The power level toped off and Rock snapped the buster up and fired without looking away from the man.

The man gaped as a target was destroyed, and Rock hadn't even aimed. "Who are you mister? You don't look familiar to me but I know everyone except rookies." He took the buster as Rock offered it.

Rock ignored the man's words for the moment. "If a reploid where skilled enough he could use both those busters in tandem to even better effect than a pair of standard busters. However this buster needs an improved reload time or it will be only good against highly armored targets and artily attacks."

He picked up the last buster and scanned it, only to be confused at what it told him. It looked as if it fired inversely charged plasma from a standard buster configuration but could be switch back to firing plasma with the standard charge. The confusion was that if someone was to shoot a target with inversely charged plasma nay shot fired afterwards would be drawn towards the same spot even if directed in an entirely different direction.

He pulled on the buster and found it already properly aligned. "You wont be able to test that one." He turned and looked at the old man. "I made that one for mister X or mister Zero. They are the only repliods I know of that can fire the inverted plasma."

Rock shot three times, hitting each remaining target with a green glowing ball of plasma. Then switching the plasma charges back to standard he fired three shots towards the sidewall. Watching as they turned and flew towards the targets, all three striking and destroying the same target. "If you allowed for different wavelengths in the plasma energy you could have several targets that are seek able in order the order they had been fired." Rock shot several more shots of plasma at the wall until the seeking shots had destroyed the targets.

He placed the last buster on the table and walked to the door. "My name is Rock. If you make anymore interesting busters like those I will test them for you." And with that he walked out. Only to find he had stepped into a steel cage setting against the door and the cage door drop with a clang.

"I finally found a way to trace you down, motion sensors. So Rock shall we go discuss our first stage of research?" Akako was there without her armor still, wearing a blue tunic and a short blue skirt. She activated a remote and the small-wheeled base of the cage started fallowing her as she walked.

"A steel cage? A bit archaic isn't it? I could call my armor and physically break free." Rock learned back against the bars of the cage, wanting to see what she thought she could do.

"It isn't just a steel cage. It is formed with a mirroring layer that refracts transfer beams. So you couldn't beam anything in or out of there. The mirroring layers are very fragile and difficult to produce or we would use it as a liner in the construction of buildings. I know you can beam through shielding, I plan to find out how, but I doubt that you could get free of this." Akako stopped next to an elevator and pressed the call button.

Rock thought of this, first that old man had created busters that hadn't been thought of in his time and now they had some kind of transfer reflecting substance. Maybe their technology wasn't degrading but rather evolving along different paths. He saw a flash of pink and dropped to the ground as great gout of flame washed across the top of the cage.

Without a sign of what had fired the fire stopped, leaving the cage unharmed until Rock stood again shaking the bars and sending a shower of small silver flakes cascading down around him. To test it he called both his busters, they appeared around his hands and he called the rest of his armor. "But how did you do that? You don't have any flame weapons. Do you?" Akako was sitting on the floor where she had dropped to avoid the flames as they slammed into the elevator doors, melting them solid.

"I do." She hadn't seen Roll, and he had only seen a glimpse of pink, and he didn't feel like telling her he didn't attack the cage. He griped the bars and pulled them apart while more silver flakes fell on him. He didn't think she needed to tell her his fire-based weapons where back at Light's compound.

He stepped from the cage and offered Akako a hand back to her feet. She was his height actually, strange considering most reploids where built tall. She was studying him again as he stepped back, he looked at the warped elevator doors and decided that he would go thank Roll.

He felt a sudden lurch just as he started his transfer procedure. He fell backwards off the transfer platform inside Light's compound. Akako landed on his chest with a grunt, she had grabbed him when she saw he was starting a transfer. He tossed her aside and got back to his feet, "are you insane! You might all be incompetent fools in this century but even you should know not to jump into an active transfer beam." He recalled some of the more gruesome results of a failed transfer back in his own time.

"Where are we?" her words froze his thoughts. He had just brought her to his home, or as close as to home it would be in this century. She tried to stand but fell with a cry of pain as her leg twisted from under her. Her knee had come through the transfer reversed, causing several structural warping as she tried standing on it.

"This is my home. And maybe your new prison." Rock picked her up and carried her into the main chamber and toward on of the automated repair and recharge tanks. He ignored her words and demands for answers; he even ignored her slapping his armor and bruising her hands. He placed her into a tank and pushed her back until the lid closed and her eyes closed and her chest stopped moving while the tank took charge.

"Bringing home guests already Mega?" Roll was leaning against the doorframe in her pink armor. "That wasn't a good idea, especially since she is an obsessive researcher. But if you want to think with your eyes go right ahead." She turned a left before Rock could answer.

He looked at Akako inside the tank, she was pretty. He didn't feel like sleeping so he just climbed into another recharging tank, one configured to restore his long depleted sub-tanks. His last thought before unnatural sleep was that maybe he should ask Light for an older looking body.

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There chapter 3. I didn't like it. What did you think?

Review.

Review..

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Review!

NOW!


	4. chapter 4

Ok I will just come out and say it. I have no ideas for this fic, normally I have some idea of what to do but not this time.

Who liked Akako? I have no idea where she came from. Actually, and no one who doesn't know me will believe or understand this, after finishing chapter 2 I have just been letting my fingers hit the keys with out any pre-thought ideas.

And stop telling me MEGAMAN is actually MEGA MAN, I know that but like MEGAMAN better.

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Ok READ and then REVIEW!

A blaster from the past C4)

Rock felt the tank click open and remained where he was, letting his system reorient and run a stats check. A warning error appeared in the back of his mind and he had to spend a few microseconds trying to remember what it was.

His eyes snapped open and he leapt from the tank as he remembered the error code that had only ever shown up once before. It was the same error he had gotten when Willy had tried to reprogram his memory core.

He caught the wire trailing from behind his ear and ripped it free, ignoring the jolt it sent across his system. He was letting his emotions take over and they where a mix of rage and fear. His armor appeared around him and both hands disappeared as he started charging his busters.

He turned to Akako who was sitting there beside the restoration tank he had been in, her face was stuck somewhere between annoyance and surprise. Rock brought up both busters and fired them together, the two large blasts of plasma merging just before impact.

Akako screamed in terror but it was too late. The blast had already hit and dispersed against red armor. Rock stopped the growl in his throat as he regained his senses. Rush had jumped before the blast, his armor attuned to protect him from Rock's standard plasma signature.

Rush was sniffing at a pale and stunned Akako, wanting to play. Rock considered shooting her still but sent his armor away knowing he wouldn't unless she tried something like that again.

Akako was recovering from the fright of nearly being retired and was trying to push Rush away from her. "Rush heel." Rush walked over and sat down beside Rock, his tail thumping against the ground. "Rush go play with Roll." Rush looked up at Rock before turning and leaving with his head down and his tail drooping.

Rock calmly walked over and pulled the small handheld computer from Akako's hands and snapped it in half, and then into fourths while she glared at him. Then he reached down and lifted her to her feet, ignoring her protests.

"would you stop pulling me around. I can walk on my own." She pulled her arm from his grasp and glared at him. "now where exactly are we and what did you mean when you said this might be my prison?"

Rock started walking away, pausing only long enough to gesture for her to fallow him. As they walked down the hall with their footsteps ringing off the walls Rock let her stew in silence. "we are in Dr. Light's current lab, you don't need to know where it is at the moment."

Rock flipped a sweeping robot back onto its treads with his foot, planning on telling Rush he shouldn't bother them while they were working. "until I or Light think its ok for you to leave you are going to remain in this compound. Weather your awake or in stasis depends on how well you behave."

Akako tried to pick up the sweeping robot but it zipped away from her before she could catch it. "why exactly don't you want me to leave. So far all I have discovered is that you have at least one mechloid and a rather decently sized self-contained compound. And that you are perhaps a class a hunter from the one memory file I got from you."

Akako found herself on the floor and everything spinning around as a stinging sensation spread across her face. Rock had hit her with his open hand and was standing over her flexing his hands into fists and back. "that is the first rule. You are never to ever try tampering with my memory core. I will not hesitate to destroy you if do."

Akako held her Stinging face and couldn't help but tremble with fear. The anger in his voice and the emptiness in his eyes proved more terrifying than she believed even Sigma could be. He reached down again and she flinched back as he griped her arm and pulled her to her feet.

He turned and started down the hall again leaving her standing there wondering if she really would be trapped here. He stopped at a doorway and waited for her to fallow him, as she came up beside him he hit the door open and walked through into one of the smaller research labs. Smaller being about the size of a ranch home and including a basic living module for the scientist who wouldn't leave his work.

As she stood there staring at all the equipment he closed the door behind her. "second rule. You will not leave this lab. You can use any of the equipment here but the computer has only programs and basic work related utilities. It isn't connected to any files database and any attempt to reach those files will result in a rather violent anti-aggressor program"

Akako stepped forward as if not believing what was before her and ran her hand along the console of a vast machine that could do the tasks of seven of her best similar devices in her own labs. "how did you find these. Are they operational?" her fingers found the activation key and she watched as the machine hummed to life and many small lights began to race across it.

"they should be fully operational but the attendance robots have only recently been restarted so I'm not sure.I believe I purchased this particular peace of equipment at a technology symposium. Rule Three. You cannot take anything back with you if you ever leave. That means you will have to commit everything you learn or _discover_ to memory because I wont let you take even one recording disk with you." Rock let his fingers enter a simple command in the console and smiled to himself as a small hatch opened and a peace of plastic emerged, shaped like a miniature Rush.

Akako had frozen as her thoughts tried to comprehend what Rock and said without saying. She reached out and griped his arm, making him look at her. "just how old are you Rock? I thought that maybe you had been made and sealed shortly after X but you keep saying strange things. You just told be you bought ancient technology at a symposium and there are those childs storys talking about a robotic hero but we cant find any hard data to confurm it."

Rock frowned and dropped the Rush figure back into the machine. "I will have to be more careful with my words it seams." He turned and went to leave but her hand was still on his arm. he didn't take his eyes from the floor while he answered her, "I was active long before X was even a thought in Light's mind. I was the first humanoid Robot that had every capacity of a human."

He tried to pull away again but her grip was still on his arm and she was making him think about things that he would rather leave behind. She pulled him around and tried lifting his chin but he kept it down so she bent down until she was staring into his eyes. "who are you Rock?"

He brushed her side and went to the door stepping out and sealing it to open only at his command. He leaned against the door for a long moment trying to stop his logical mind from fighting his emotions. Every time he wondered who or what he was this happened and he wouldn't be able to think clearly for days.

He walked down towards his room, planning to lock himself in until his self-conflict was resolved. It wasn't the first time this had happened but he didn't have any other way to deal with it. once he had battled Bass while he was like this, Bass had almost taken him apart before Rock had managed to make a solid hit with his buster.

He brushed aside Roll as she was blasting at his door, not caring about the insults she shouted at him and sealed the door behind him. He fell onto the only chair in a room full of grisly trophies. He let his eyes find a warped pair of circular scissors as his mind recalled his first real battle.

"give up Megaman. Dr. Willy will rule the earth and you wont stop him." Rock was standing in his new armor, already cracked and damaged from fighting more small robots than he thought possible.

The Robot before him was taller than him and covered in red and white armor with a round pair of scissors standing up from his head. It was Cutman and Willy had reprogrammed him. "I can't let you harm anymore people Cutman. I will stop you."

Rock raised his one still functioning buster and fired a single shot of plasma. Cutman sneered as his hand switched with another round pair of scissors and easily swatted the feeble shot away. "look at you. Just look at what you are against me. I am a fast moving blade-swinging lumberjack that is made to do damage. I could cut through you just as easy as this tree."

Cutman swung his arm and his scissor blade flew out and sniped a tree's truck in half. The blade retuned as the think tree fell into the clearing, right towards Cutman. Cutman ginned and leaned forward as the tree met his head, the scissors on his head cutting easily through the tree and letting the halves fall away. "and you are a little tiny boy made to hand an old man his tools or think of someway to make something better. Surrender and Dr. Willy might let you clean his bathroom."

Rock was tired and hurting from his injuries but he swore he wouldn't let Willy win. "yes I'm just a thinker and you are a woodsman but I think I can still win." Rock charged at Cutman, somehow avoiding his swiping blades and jumped up, bringing his damaged arm down and against the side of Cutman's head.

Cutman bent down and shoulder rammed Rock back, ramming him into a tree and stepping back as Rock tried to move. Cutman walked back to the tree he had cut and placed a foot up on it as her watched Rock struggle to get to his feet. "still think you can win Megaman?" Cutman took a moment to examine his scissor hand as if checking his pedicure.

"yes." Megaman was holding his side where he could feel some of his major components shattered by the powerful assault.

"wrong." And with that Cutman shipped his hand again sending several scissor blades flying at once. Rock stood there in pain until the last moment before dropping to the side and letting the blades pass him and sever the tree behind him. As the tree started to fall Cutman laughed and stepped forward, "I'm spending more effort cutting the trees than fighting you."

Cutman's laughter stopped as he tried to move his head scissors only to find them warped shut from Rock's earlier attack. Before he could move the tree struck, sending bits of metal and the warped scissors flying as Cutman was driven into the ground like a nail into wood. Rock crawled back to his feet and made his way over to Cutman's remains and took the scissor buster from his arm. he managed to transfer back home before falling over.

Rock blinked and moved his eyes away from the scissors, he won that battle with luck realy, he didnt mean to warp Cutman's blades it jut happened. He stood and turned his chair around, not wanting to think about the many reminders behind him of what he had done in the name of peace.

He closed his eyes and let the battle of logic and emotion rage inside his head. He spent the next day sitting there and made no attempt at moving. he would be useless until the battle was over, logic always won but the battle still had to be fought.

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sorry for the extremely short chapter but I haven't got any ideas to work with here and I didn't feel like rehashing a bunch of robot master battles. I may add more of his old boss battles in if I'm asked but they are mostly filler.

If you want this story to continue toss me a few ideas. I got nothing. So unless you want more extremely short chapters that hardly help the plot give me a direction to go. I don't really want to go with the plot of X3 but I don't know what else I could do with the X universe.

And finally my confession. I HATE the original and X games. dives behind armored wall to avoid fan retaliation amazing huh? I hate them but I still wrote a fic about it. well that goes to show you how my mind refuses to work. I get an idea and I have to use it.

REVIEW. Or email me with your ideas. My email is cockpitdude2002 yahoo . com, be sure to put 'fic' or 'megaman' in the subject or I wont read it.


	5. chapter 5

Writers block? I don't know, it could be, I never had writers block before. I just didn't like any of the ideas I was having.

I just now found serious mistake back in chapter two. I had Zero reach down to his hip for his saber when it would have been on his back. Reaching for a weapon on your hip isn't noticeable but reaching for one on your back would be. I am a huge fan of the zero games, and he keeps his saber on his hip in them.

Here, read it.

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A blaster from the past C5)

Rock was still staring at the wall in his room; it had been almost two days since Akako's words prompted the battle in his mind. The battle was running down quicker than normal and logic was winning as usual. He closed his eyes for a moment as the conclusion came to him, he was Rock. The answer was always simple and direct but reaching it was always different.

He stood and stretched his arms, not needing to but finding it an appropriate gesture. He took only a glance at his shelf of trophies and headed towards the door. Before he could even reach the door consol the door slid open. There was Roll, in her armor still and holding a micro decoder that she had used to hack his door code.

He gave her his best glare but it didn't faze her like it once did. "So why are you sulking in there anyhow? Did your that woman turn you down for a date?" Rock stepped out the door and pressed the seal command.

He smashed a finger into the override port, destroying any future code hacking by Roll, or at least making it harder. "I had a conflict error, you must have had one of those by now." He started down the hall towards the stairs and she fell into step with him.

She was taller than him by half an inch now, but it could have been her armor. "Not really. Dr light still doesn't know why you get those." She kicked a floor polisher back onto its many small feet with out breaking stride. "So are you going to ask me what I have been doing while you where asleep? I thought you would have been bugging me about it by now."

Rock stepped into a storage room and found a handful of pre-assembled parts he was going to need shortly. "No I wont. You already told me not to ask, remember." He closed the door and continued on down the slightly curving hall.

Roll shifted her hand into its buster once before bringing her hand back. "I didn't think you would listen to me. Well imp going to tell you and you are going to listen." Rock finally reached the room he was after and entered. This room was Light's pre-model room, it was where small scale models of where kept. There was model of every robot master in here and several different versions of Mega man.

Roll walked over to a small shelf showing her own models and touched a switch on the base her first design was sitting on. The miniature blond stood up and walked around before saying something, "hello I am Roll. I am fully capable of performing every household chore." The real Roll flicked the switch and made a gagging sound. Light had first built her and Rock with plans to make them household appliances, thankfully he had changed his mind before they had been activated.

Rock found the model of his current body, all the versions taking up several shelves, and the only model of X available. He walked over to the database computer and slid the specification chips from the models into the readers. "What are you doing?" Roll had come over and was standing behind him as his fingers danced across the keyboard.

He set up a simple comparison algorithm before answering her. "I'm planning on some upgrades. I might have more experience than X right now but I am not a match for his power." The computer beeped and he looked at the small window that had appeared. "Unfortunately I can only support fifty six percent of his basic hardware. The rest of it is configured towards his neural based brain and wont work on our systems."

Roll leaned on his shoulder and looked at the screen before shaking her head at the long lines of code. "Rock I might be a lot different than you remember but I still don't understand half the things you just said."

Rock hit a key and a new window appeared with an image of his current appearance. "I need to be stronger so I'm using parts of his design to make mine better. Did you understand that?" he started typing again and his appearance on the screen started to change slightly.

'**Smack**' Roll had slapped his head in frustration. "Of course I understood that you moron. But why are you doing it?"

Rock shook his head before glancing at the screen, his hand had slipped on the keyboard when Roll hit him and now he had half his face replaced by a hand. He started to correct the error while Roll laughed at the image as it disappeared one finger at a time. "Light bluffed and said I was a match for his potential. And while it might be true that I could defeat him now after he gains more experience I wouldn't have a chance."

"Why not just get Light to make you into a reploid?" Roll had wandered over to the shelves and picked up the model of Rock before he was Megaman. She placed it next to a model of Bass and pressed both buttons, she laughed as Bass pounced on Rock and started pummeling him.

Rock stopped what he was doing to go over and stop the micro sized fight. "He could easily build me a body that was fully reploid and even place my memories into it but it wouldn't be me. The neural network in the mind is too different for all my emotions to cross over. I could become a egotistical maniac or a total wuss" Rock swore under his breath as the model of Bass bit him, he shook the five-inch tall model once before pressing its deactivation button.

Roll jumped into the chair before he could sit down again. "So why not ask your girlfriend if she could help you make new parts that do what X's do but work only for you?"

Rock pushed the chair aside on its wheels and stood at the computer while he typed. "She doesn't know how to build X's parts let alone make ones that serve the same purpose for me." The Rock on screen was as finished as he could make it. It looked almost exactly the same but was slightly older looking and taller and better defined.

Roll spun around on the chair a few times before stopping and looking at the screen. "Trying to look good for someone?" she got out of the chair and started for the door. "Maybe you should ask her for help. After all she is a reverse engineer, she could work backwards from what is there while you work up from nothing. I wager she would finish before you did."

She stopped outside the door and looked back in. "I changed my mind. I don't want to tell you what I have been doing. Watch it yourself; the password for my vid files is RIP. You know, Rest In Peace."

The door slid shut and Rock was left watching the older image of him as it slowly rotated. He sighed and pressed a button on the console, both the models chips ejected, as did another one containing his altered data. He pocketed the third chip and returned the models to their places before leaving.

He walked down the hall again towards the lab he left Akako by herself. He knew he shouldn't do this but Light spent most of his time offline anymore and he didn't want to talk to him. Even before entering stasis Light had been growing tired of his semi-life state. Rock had a feeling that Light would delete himself after X had found all the pods he had been left.

Rock pushed those thoughts away as he opened the door to the lab, only to stop in wonderment as he saw what was happening inside. Akako was running around from machine to machine and then to the computer, trying to do seventy things at once and remember them as well.

He took a step inside thinking that this might not have been so good an idea. Akako either didn't see him or was too busy to react to his presence. "Akako? Will you stop a moment and listen to me."

"Cant. Too busy. I have already made more progress in two days than my entire team had in a year. Its amazing what I have discovered just by studying these machines." Rock noticed that she had opened panels on most the machines and even had a few dismantled.

He caught her arm as she came closer to him, she immediately started hitting him and screaming about her research. "Akako, have you even slept? I wont let you work in here if you are going to neglect yourself."

She relaxed in his grip and then calmed her breathing before looking him in the eye. "I'm sorry it just amazing that all this survived by itself for so long. I can't stand the thought that maybe it won't last. I already have most the schematics for these machines memorized and then I can start using them to work on problems that have been bothering us for years or even decades."

Rock released her but caught her arm again as she stumbled, "if you don't slow down you wont be around to do anything. So you are going to go climb into the recharge tank or sleep on the cot in back. After you wake up I have a project for you, go ahead go ill leave what I want you to do on the monitor."

"Ok." She stumbled away from him and back towards the small living unit. She must have been going at it rather hard to be worn out already; most reploids could last days without sleep or recharging and be doing hard labor during it.

Rocks watched her step inside the small cubicle like room and pull the thin door shut. He walked over to the computer and pulled up a new screen as he slid the chip into its slot. "If she really did figure out the machines here already I can't let her have to much or I might have to deal with hundreds of the X series if I ever let her out."

Rock let enough data for her to be able to understand what he needed but not enough that she could recreate it in a compete form. It would make her work harder but it was less risk, the worst being that she could still use the data as a stepping stone towards recreating X. most of what he for her was what he knew they had already figured out. That still left him with a good deal that would need to be converted for his use. He stacked the parts he had gathered beside the computer, they where things that she wouldn't be able to go get while locked in here.

He pocketed the chip again and left, not forgetting to seal the door behind him, and went of to the main computer room where he could talk to Light and check those vid files of Roll's. He stepped inside the room and dropped into the chair, using his foot to hit the activation button. "Are you busy doctor?"

The halo projector in the corner of the ceiling flickered to life and then Lights hologram appeared beside Rock. "What do you need Rock? I was studying some new literary works."

Rock casually slid the chip into the computer and let the auto read bring up his data. "If I am to help X I need a better body. Already his power is above my own, I would only defeat him because of my experience. If he grows to even a third of his power my experience wont matter."

Light studied the screen, nodding at what Rock had already done. He saw the tags on parts of the data and raised an eyebrow at Rock. "What are these data tags? They say you already have those in development. Does this have anything to do with that young woman in lab fourteen?" Rock fell backwards as the chair tipped under him.

He scrambled back to his feet as Dr Light chuckled at him. "Yes I gave her those areas to work on. Her name is Akako. She is a reverse engineer at the hunter HQ."

Light laughed for a moment longer before returning to the data on the screen. "Yes I think I can work on this for you. It may take a day or so but don't worry ill have it finished long before X reaches even a quarter of his potential." Light's hologram flickered and vanished and Rock watched as screens on the computer opened and closed while the doctor worked on the design.

Rock turned to another smaller screen on his left and told it to retrieve any vid files made by Roll with the password RIP. The list was shorter than he had hoped but she must have only recently started using this password. Rock called up the first and leaned back as it ran.

The image was static for a moment before the image appeared; a nearly finished Roll was laying on a table as robotic arms peace together her body. It was her current body and Rock could see her armor being assembled on another table. Suddenly her eyes shot open and she sat up with a scream and clutched at her neck.

Rock knew that sensation all too well; Light had installed a safety recover disk in all his robots, except the X searies witch was far too expresive in mentalty. If critical damage happened and the body was about to detonate the recovery chip would be transferred away so that the newest memories and personally traits could be installed in the next body.

Roll calmed herself and lay back as the arms continued to put her back together. Rock struck the forward button and watched as Roll's body was finished and she got to her feet. She walked towards the door and as soon as she stepped off camera the perspective changed into what she was seeing.

She headed towards the transfer pad and left in a flash, where she appeared was obviously the hunter HQ. She slipped along the halls, stepping into shadows as reploids in armor approached. She lashed out as they passed where she was, her hands catching them across the neck. They fell to the ground disabled as she moved down the hallways again. She leapt up and clung to the ceiling and moved along it like an insect.

The hallway up ahead was damaged but she kept going, only slowing enough to ensure her molecular bonders had a firm grip on the ceiling. Around a bend the hallway was gone, totally gone. Someone had gone critical here and the walls where gone and nearby rooms wasted. Roll slowly crawled down the wall and started scanning, after a few moments she shifted the ruble and picked up a peace of twisted metal. The metal was blackened on one side and a bright red on the other.

"I'm telling you Cain, it was a maverick." Roll leapt to the ceiling with a single bound and clung there as a reploid in red, white and black armor came around the opposite bend. "I was in my office doing my paper work and I heard something. I jumped out the door and there she was."

Cain was a short thin little man with white hair and a growing bald spot. "Zero if there was a maverick in the HQ it wouldn't have gotten near your office without killing or being seen by someone. I wager this is just another way of getting out of you paperwork, there wasnt even a blip on the base sensors."

Zero kicked a stone, indivertibly reveling another peace of twisted metal. "But I'm telling you she was there. She was around five foot four and in this strange pink and red armor. She tried rushing me and I called my armor and took her head off with my saber." Zero played out the motions as her spoke, looking like he was trying to sell a story more than ever.

"I don't care what you say Zero. This is coming out of your paycheck, and Signis is canceling your leave until you tell the truth." Cain made to leave but saw the peace of metal beside Zero's foot. Cain bent down to pick it up, as Zero stormed off down the hall.

Roll watched as Cain picked up the metal and studded it. He looked around for others but not seeing any he walked off. As soon as he was gone Roll dropped to the floor and resumed scanning for other peaces, swearing under her breath. She found a few more peaces and turned to leave, only to find X leaning against the shattered wall watching her.

Roll froze. She stood there like a dear in the headlights as X examined her. "So you are who I have been seeing around corners." He pushed himself off the wall and took a step towards her and she took one back. "I'm not going to hurt you I just want to know what your doing here."

Roll took another step back as X took one towards her. "Your not supposed to know. I'm not even supposed to be seen." She felt a wall hit her back and she slid along it as he advanced.

X had raised his hands and kept walking, apparently sensing her anxiety. "Its ok, if you mean us no harm we wont hurt you. Was that your friend?" X pointed a hand at the bits of medal in her arms.

Roll took a second to look at the metal in her arms before looking back up. X had stopped when her back had hit a corner and she couldn't move anymore. "I was clumsy and Zero saw me. I tried knocking him out but he, he was quicker."

X's face turned stony and his hands dropped to his side. "You can't have been her. She was destroyed and there are bans on rebuilding reploids."

Roll shifted her feet as she looked at his face; she was very uncomfortable being on the spot like this. "It was I. I must go now."

X leapt forward as Roll activated her transfer, but she was already gone, having reappeared on the transfer pad back at the compound. She slumped to the ground and sighed, "I can't believe that they both saw me now." She raised the face guard onto her forehead before the vid file ended.

Rock watched the blank screen for a moment before opening the next. This one was shorter than the last. He watched through Roll's eyes as she studied Zero as he was training in just a pair of jeans. He heard her give a dreamy kind of sigh as she watched him attacking a fellow hunter with a wooden kendo sword. Rock fell from his chair in shock as her eyes zoomed in on his rippling chest while he struck again and again, not leaving his opponent a chance to recover.

Rock all but put his finger through the key as he stabbed at the stop key. "I didn't need to see that." He opened the next file and while waiting for it he shook his head. "My sister has a crush on the guy who cut off her head."

The next file was Roll watching from the air, Rock would have to find out how, while X and several repliods walked through a forest of half mechanical trees. Suddenly a large animal like reploid leaped from the dense foliage and slashed one of the reploids apart with its claws.

Several reploids opened fire and managed to do slight damage before the maverick fled again. X knelt beside the body of his fallen solder and closed its eyes before getting back to his feet and walking into the foliage where the maverick had disappeared. A blast of charged plasma soared up at Roll from one of the reploids and she swerved away before it could hit. As she circled around again X had already found and destroyed the cat-like maverick and the file ended.

Rock opened the next file right away, only to stop it, as it was Zero working out again. "She is obsessed. Well I guess the good part is she hasn't approached him or left him mystery love letters."

Rock checked for any other vid files but those few where the only ones that the password worked on so he turned of the screen and left the room. He headed for the transfer platform and but stopped before leaving. He called up a COM link and sent the command to retrieve some of his weapons. Perhaps it was because of his reminiscing but he decided to use only the first six master weapons he had acquired. Then he stepped onto the platform and vanished, the chips containing the transfer codes of his weapons securely placed inside his helmet.

* * *

Next chapter should finally be the race and/or duel between Rock and Zero.

**Eats a poison cookie **hey these are good. I didn't think arsenic tasted so wonderful. Here try my mother's tuna casserole. **Holds out pan full of gray goo that has streaks of pulsing yellow in it **it can eat through an engine block in under twenty minutes. **Sees the nuke falling and dived into his armoredbunker**

Thank Archaon for this chapter; he gave me some ideas that kick started my brain.

And yes I hate the Megaman and MegamanX GAMES. I like the plot and ideas, its just the play control is terrible. Megaman can only fire right of left, why can't he point his buster at different angles like Bass in Megaman and Bass. I am a huge fan of the Zero and Battle Network games.

Later

Oh and don't forget that review button.


	6. chapter 6

I'm basically writing this because of you, the readers.

And Archaon, thanks for the continued reviews and the site URL. Here is where I find all my game info, give it a look. http / w w w DOT mmhp DOT net /

Read this one.

* * *

A blaster from the past C6)

Rock appeared in a flash of light, standing atop the sign that was on the front of the Hunter base head quarters. He sat down on it and watched the reploids and humans below him. They didn't notice him, as it appeared that people in this time had forgotten to ever look up.

He sat there a long while just watching people walk past the building and down the street and disappear into any of the tall buildings around. This was a tall city and Rock didn't like it, it held lots of interesting architecture but it was too cramped. He preferred living out on the edge of everything, like ranch home that he had first been activated in.

In an emotional impulse he called up a COM line and connected an automated surveillance satellite. He pulled up the coordinates where the small house had been and frowned as the image over his vision showed a last inner sea bordered by rocky wastes.

Rock shook his head and terminated the connection fully understanding that the home wouldn't be there but still upset. He heard gunfire, not plasma shots but actual guns. He jumped to the ground and ran toward the sound, it lead him out around the side of the vast building and toward a smaller one sat off to the side.

He swung the door open and stepped inside while calling his armor. Inside was maintenance shed and everything inside was for taking care of the grounds. The shots had stopped but he fallowed the sound anyhow. He was nearing the back of the building, having had to weave through aisles of tools and fertilizers when he heard voices.

"Man this is so cool, how did you find it?" the voice was still juvenile and overly excited.

"Calm down. I found it digging out in one of the ruins while we where on a training patrol. I even found enough ammo for a few shots. I got three bullets left. After that I'm goanna have to sneak down to the workshops in the garage and make some." The other voice was also young but in the way that reploids sound young even with a mature voice.

Rock stepped around the last shelf and found a young human standing beside a short reploid in blue armor. They held a rifle between them that he didn't recognize and against the far wall was a sack of sand with several holes in it. They where currently feeding the last bullets into the gun with excited eyes and quick fingers.

Rock leaned against the wall and waited for them to see him not caring about the firearm or that they used it without permission. "Can I fire it?" the human teenager picked up the light rifle and pointed at the sandbag.

The gun went of and a new hole appeared in the bag as more sand spilled from the other holes. The teen dropped the gun as the recoil stunned his arms, the gun fell and Rock leapt forward to catch it. He was to late as the gun hit the cement floor and the two shots went off in rapid secession.

Rock grabbed the gun and rolled back to his feet, turning and checking the two stunned boys behind him. The teenager was pale and trembling but unharmed while the reploid stood in openmouthed shock. The teen raised a hand and pointed at Rock before his eyes rolled up and he fell, his friend barely catching him.

Rock looked down and found two holes in his chest, clean bored and piercing his armor. He checked his diagnostics screen and found that the two bullets had logged very near to his power core. He looked at the gun in his hands and found the safety switch; flicking it off he bent down to the ground and picked up the two shell casings.

He put a hand on the reploid's shoulder and steered him out off the shed. The replied finally gathered itself enough to speak, "Are you ok?" he easily carried his friend while Rock lead him toward the doors into the Hunter base.

"I'm not seriously harmed. You should be more careful with firearms, especially archaic ones. And you shouldn't let anyone handle your firearms unless you are sure they can use them safely." Rock could feel his automated repair system already working on the damage caused.

They stepped inside the door and every eye turned to them as motion halted. Then total panic ensued, human clerks and secretaries dove for cover while reploid's rushed at them calling upon their armor. Rock felt the blue armored reploid under his hand tremble in fear as several busters and other weapons were leveled at them.

Rock let go of the reploids shoulders and let his armor disappear, and then nudged the reploid to do the same. The reploid trembled and let his armor go, making him drop an inch as he became shorter. A female reploid in white armor with a red cross on her chest and helmet pushed through the others and pulled the teen from his grasp.

"What's going on here?" the many reploids stepped aside, not lowering their weapons, as Zero came forward in his armor. "What are you doing? Mavericks don't walk in the front door caring unharmed humans. Somebody ask them what happened."

Several of the busters and weapons were withdrawn but one rather large nasty looking steel hook remained as its owner stepped forward. He was taller than everyone else and his armor was a sea blue hinted with green and silver. His armor was shaped and trimmed with fins and a long fish tail lashed the ground behind him. His face was slightly gray and his heavily lidded eyes watched Rock.

He pointed his hook at the reploid, "you're a rookie in training, why aren't you in your squad classes?"

The reploid trembled at the hook inches from his nose. "I'm sorry sir. My squad had a free hour and I wanted to show my friend my, my…"

Rock took the gun from under his arm and tossed it to Zero. "He found this and a few rounds. The two of them were firing it into a sandbag in the gardeners shed. He let the human fire it but the recoil surprised him."

Zero caught the weapon with ease and proceeded to check the clip and barrel. After finding that it was functional he tossed it to the reploid, who barely caught it. "The discovery of firearms is to be reported before use." He turned to Rock and stared at him, the glint of anger flaring to life for a moment before it was gone again. "So why is the boy passed out?"

Rock shrugged and raised his shirt, showing the two slightly sparking holes in his chest. There were a few half heard exclamations from the gathered reploids, for a reploid the wound would have been serious. "He dropped the rifle with the recoil and it went off, the shots struck me as I blocked the human from harm. The damage is minimal." Even as he spoke a half melted half flattened slug of metal was pushed from one off the holes, clinking to the ground by his foot.

"Medic!" the cry came from several mouths and was almost instantly followed by more reploids in white and pink armor swarming into the room. They caught him and tossed him onto a floating backboard and strapped him in place. They raced him down hallways as he struggled to free himself. I needle was stuck into his arm and broke as it hit metal directly below.

They pulled him into a room full of white walls and bright lights, talking faster than Rock thought possible. A scalpel was brought forward and cut into his skin around one of the first bullet holes. Everything froze as fast as it had started when the skin was peeled away to show plated metal and trailing wires.

Rock finally tore an arm free of the straps holding him down; he swatted the scalpel away from his skin and ripped another strap free. "It will heal itself unless you tamper with It." he ripped the last strap free and sat up. Another needle was trust into his neck but it snapped as it stuck the metal below.

Rock smacked the hand away and pulled the broken needle free. "I am not a reploid. I am a robot I need repairs not healing. There is no biotechnology involved in my construction." He reached out took up the dropped scalpel; he dragged it down the side of his head as they watched in sick wonder.

He griped the side of his face and lifted it away, reviling the complex circuits and motor control beneath that manipulated the thin polymer skin into expressions. "I see you understand now. Good." He placed his face back over the mechanics and grinned at them, enjoying the slightly morbid satisfaction of watching their pale faces. It wasn't often he did things like that and he didn't like to be frightening but if it got his point across he would do it.

He got up from the bed and walked out of the room heading back towards the main entrance. Walking down the corridor he saw Zero heading towards him and as Zero passed him he turned and fell in step. "You planed that didn't you?" he saw Zero's grin.

Zero shook his head, still grinning. "No I didn't have anything to do with that but it was funny. So what are you planning now? Abducting an operator next? Destroy the stairs while waiting for the elevators doors to open?" he broke out laughing then, "You cause more trouble than I do."

Rock frowned, then stopped as his face tried sliding away. He looked at Zero, seeing him watching him with that deep spark of anger in his eyes. "Are you ready for that sparing match?"

The anger disappeared and Zero gave him a predatory grin, "I think the question is, are you?"

Rock smiled back, easily imitating Zero's grin. "I could be missing an arm and be ready."

"Well then lets grab some witnesses and head down to the gym." Zero turned down a side hall and Rock followed. Zero just walked along and taped reploids on the shoulder as he passed. They fell into step behind them and whispered amongst themselves as the progression grew.

The progression had truly grown huge as Zero stopped at the door of X's office. The door didn't open when he hit the key so he looked back over his shoulder at the long line of reploids. "Looks like X heard us coming." Laughs sprang up and traveled back the crowded halls. Zero reached up and drew the hilt of his Z-saber from the fixed sheath holding over his shoulder.

Rock tried scanning the strange weapon as it flared and sparked with green energy but his scanning waves fades away after touching it. Zero slashed out, moving faster than Rock had calculated his speed to be and with four screeching glowing lines the doorway started to fall outward.

Zero stepped back but Rock stayed where he was, deciding to show off his own abilities. With a single hand he reached out and griped the door, his fingers bending in the metal around them. He hefted it over his head and turned, calmly placing it against the other wall. He turned back, careful not to grin at the handful of wondering looks.

"I thought you said you weren't a match for me without your armor?" Rock smiled at Zero then and restrained his quick reply.

Rock leaned forward and pushed at the large filing cabinet that was against where the door had been. "I said I couldn't match your speed without my armor." He gave a push and watched the cabinet slide back a few feet. "I never mentioned my strength." Rock smiled at the whispered words of wonder behind him as he easily shoved more furniture away from the doorway. He knew that most reploids of his size would have trouble with the filing cabinet. Their construction was mostly biotech and while impressive for flexibility and resistance couldn't handle extreme weight without having been made specifically for moving.

Rocks construction was solid; he could lift several times his own weight even without his armor. However his speed and flexibility without his armor would put him far below what most reploids where capable of. After seeing Zero use his saber he doubted he could match his speed at all.

After the furniture Zero waved his hand and several reploid's in their armor went marching in and dragged out a resisting X. he was stabbing their armor with a broken pen and shouting at them, "I have paper work to do! Leave me be! Zero, I wont judge your stupid contest!"

The reploid's carried him down the hall towards the gym with X shouting curses at Zero the whole way. Rock watched the blond haired reploid beside him, "It looks like X has had this done to him before."

Zero grinned but kept his eyes forward. Another reploid behind Rock stepped up and placed an arm around Zero's shoulders. "Commander Zero regularly has to drag X out of his office. Occasionally the rest of us help. But I don't think commander X likes some off the things Zero plans for him."

Zero shoved the reploid away with a mocking frown but another reploid slipped up beside Rock and clapped an arm around him. She was tall and had many features like a fox, including a pointed face and tall ears and a long furry tail that Rock found rubbing across his ass in a fashion that couldn't be entirely accidental. She leaned down against him and in a voice that sounded far to sultry for a warrior spoke. "Last time commander Zero had thrown a swimsuit contest and made X and himself the judges."

She leaned down close to his ear and whispered in a voice even more sensuous than before. "I won second place you know." Rock let her think what she would; he didn't find the beastly appearances very attractive. Actually he found it quite odd to give animal traits to something with such strong intellect but he couldn't argue that they didn't work well, several beast reploids where actually good enough to have come from Dr Lights mind.

As they neared the gym she must have realized he wasn't interested or perhaps she thought he wasn't 'capable' of what she wanted because she unwound her tail from around his buttocks and latched onto Zero's arm. Zero grinned and put an arm around her waist as they entered the gym. Rock saw a flash of pink around the corner of the hallway and knew that something unpleasant would happen to the fox reploid at some point, or maybe to Zero.

The reploid's that had gone ahead hadn't been idle; the obstacle track had been moved and rearranged so that it formed one big tangled confused ring with a large flat circle inside. Large seats and bleachers surrounded the obstacle ring and where already half full with reploids and humans. X was chained to a chair that sat high up in the bleachers and he was slumped forward and smashing his head against his knees.

Zero walked over to a large cabinet against the wall and tossed the doors open. Inside was a large array of train weapons, swords and clubs of wood and plastic and strange busters and firearms that launched large globs of sticky colored goop.

Zero took his buster from his arm and sat it on the floor, knowing only the research scientists would dare touch it, and then placed his z-saber beside it. He took a single goop shooting buster and a pair of wooden kendo swords that he strapped across his back. He turned and walked towards the ring while Rock examined his chouses.

Only a few reploids where around him as he studied the weapons before him. They had been made for training and as such where lacking in velocity and accuracy, he would be lucky to hit the broad side of Duo with one of these.

He chouse the best pair of busters and switched them with his own, piling them beside Zero's. He looked over and saw Zero warming up, going through several forms and movements with one of the swords. He looked at the chouse in melee weapons and frowned at the clubs and swords. He had rarely used these weapons and knew that his skill with them was poor.

He shook his head and turned away without one, but stopped as he saw a mop sitting in a bucket by the door. He stepped over to it and with a sudden motion spun it up into the air. As it twisted he lashed out with the blade of his hand and the mop head spun out and struck a large green reploid in the back.

The reploid turned around and frowned until he saw the mop handle spin back down from the air and Rock casually catch it between two fingers. The reploid turned back around with a shake of his head and told another smaller reploid beside it that, 'the drone is fighting with the broom closet.'

Rock griped his staff and walked into the circle where he found a pair of burly reploids holding a still chained X between them. Zero ran his eyes over the mop handle staff but didn't say anything. One of the burly reploids shook X and he raised his head with a look of resignation on his face.

X gave a sigh so loud that Rock wondered if he ruptured a lung before he shook his head and spoke. "Alright this is a fight but it's a no damage fight. Keep it off the bleachers and any stray paint amongst the crowd works against your score. By the end of a half hour, or until someone surrenders, whoever has more paint showing louses. Alright get it over with so I can go back to work."

The two Reploids carried X away to the bleachers while Zero used his paint buster to coat one of his swords with red. Rock shifted his hand away and fired a large blue glob onto each end of the staff, letting it run down some of the shaft before shaking the rest free. Zero bowed to Rock and Rock returned the gesture.

As soon as his head lifted again Zero struck, moving like a red blur as he lashed out in a sweeping strike that a live blade would have taken off Rocks head. Rock managed to duck backwards from the blade and block the return swing with his staff. He leapt back and fired his buster at where Zero had been.

Zero was gone, dashing into the twisted ropes of a net climbing wall. Rock headed the other way, watching back the other way as he ran for a towering ladder. Zero came streaking down from the side, lashing out with his red sword and trying to split Rock along the middle.

Rock sprang back, catching the tip of the sword against his side, the small spot of red standing out against the blue. Rock sprang forward, swinging the staff in quick short circles, forcing Zero to back away. Rock then raised his buster and fired, the blue goop flying slowly and missing the speedy Zero.

Zero ran of into the jumble of obstacles and Rock continued on towards the ladder he had spotted before. Zero lunged out of nowhere again but Rock dropped backwards, sliding forward while Zero passed overhead. He fired twice as Zero passed over, the first shot missing and sailing up against a stone wall while the other struck evenly against Zero's shoulder.

The crowd, silent until now, rose up with cheers and shouts. Far to many of them had spared with the ace hunter only to have never colored his armor. Zero found his feet and glared at Rock who stood near the base of the ladder a short dash away. The blue paint covering his shoulder and dripping down his arm where it mixed with the red paint on his sword. "I haven't been painted in a while, especially not before I had given the other person a good coat."

Rock grinned but held both staff and buster ready, "experience helps in all things. You use those dash jets a bit much, have you noticed I don't even have them?" Rock leapt up, pressing his foot against the ladder while his hand with the staff griped a rung. Zero charged forward, blade leading as he sprang of the floor toward Rock.

Rock calmly pushed away, falling past Zero and smacking him across the back with his staff, leaving a long blue line there. Zero hit the ladder and sprang away again, crossing over Rock and lashing out with fast hard strokes. When the landed Zero leapt back away from a sweep of Rock's staff. Rock frowned at the red Z lashed across his blue chest armor.

"Don't worry about experience, I have enough for you." Zero jumped forward again but Rock spun his staff in a great spiraling circle that Zero's sword was flung away from ever time. Then from the center of the whirling circle came a flurry of blue shots, striking against Zero's legs as he tried rolling away.

Zero was growing infuriated; Rock was easily keeping his sword at bay while spraying paint out at him. Zero shifted the red covered kendo sword to his other hand and shifted his hand into the paint buster. His fist shot hit the whirling staff and was tossed everywhere in a spray of purple as the colors mixed.

Rock stopped his staff and looked at his armor, he was covered in small splashes of purple from his head down to his feet. He looked up and saw Zero in much the same state but glaring at him. Zero tossed the painted blade up into the air and drew the other from his back, a quick shot to color it red, before changing his hand back and catching the first sword as it fell.

Rock shot a fresh coat of blue onto his staff and readied himself for Zero to move first. They stood their several long moments with the crowd cheering and shouting around them. Rock jumped back and dropped a red cube at his feet while firing blasts at Zero. The cube unfolded into the jet sled and as he stepped onto it its jets fired to life and he rocketed towards the surprised Zero.

Zero sprang aside as the sled carried Rock past, holding his staff as if it was a lance. Rock leaned against the sled, pulling it into a turn and higher into the air as the crowd broke into booing and jeering cries. Rock ignored them as he came towards Zero again, firing paint gobs while trying to ram the blond reploid. Zero took a hit without dodging and then jumped up, his two swords darting and striking.

Rock landed on his back but sprang to his feet again, tossing aside the broken staff and shifting his other hand into a buster. He smiled as he saw Zero trying to steer the jet sled. Rock activated his remote and told the sled to lean around, making it look as if Zero had gotten it to listen. As the sled passed by the ladder Rock spun the jet sled and rammed it into the ladder. Zero was tossed to the ground as the sled swung down and returned to Rock's side. Rock tucked the cube away after it had folded itself and walked over to where Zero still lay.

Rock stood over him and looked down while Zero looked up at him. Zero spoke first, "that was a cheap trick."

Rock grinned and held out a hand to him, knowing that this fight was over. "I call it tactical thinking. Besides, did you honestly think you could ride my jet sled that well?"

Zero griped Rocks hand and got up off the ground, "it wouldn't be the first time I learned something like that." He rubbed a hand over the large dent in his chest armor. "I must admit that you fight pretty good for an ancient pile of scrap."

Rock was about to comment on Zero's skill when the reploids and humans from the bleachers flooded into the circle. All of them where shouting about outside devices or cheating. Zero tried shouting over the many voices but they road over him like a wave over a stone.

A plasma sphere exploded overhead and everyone fell silent as X pushed past them to stand beside Rock and Zero. He glared at them until he was sure they wouldn't interrupt him, "I am the judge and as such I will judge the winner and any possible broken rules."

All around there was a great nodding of heads and muttered yeses. X waited until the last murmurs faded before speaking again. "As for cheating I have to rule that there wasn't any." He raised a hand to stop any protests. "The rules never stated that outside devices couldn't be used. And if it had been a rule I would have to take points away from Zero because he also used the jet sled."

There were several half spoken protests but Zero spoke before they could grow into shouts. "I did use it. And I don't hold it's use against him, he used it very well and only to make up for his lack of dash jets." There was much whispered talk over this and Rock could see many eyes studying his back and feet with their lack of jets.

X turned to the two fighters now and shook his head while a smile grew across his face. "I have to say that I haven't seen a sparing match get this heated before. And Zero I don't think I ever expected you to be painted so well." It was true; from head to toe Zero was covered in splashes and stripes of blue paint with splattered purple over it all.

X turned to Rock then and looked him up and down in the same way as he had Zero. "And your covered rather well yourself." Rock had slashes of red across most his body and over it all was the splattering of purple.

X turned to the crowd and raised his hand to stop the conversations that had sprung up. "I say it's a draw." The crowd was full of mixed reactions at the judgment. Many couldn't believe that Zero had been so totally painted by a drone, as many of them still called Rock. And others couldn't believe that Rock had held his own so well while being at an apparent disadvantage. Mostly thou they had been glad to see such a good fight.

"AND." Everyone stopped and listened to X as he spoke. "And I think I finally get to protest these events and my enforced judging." He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. As if with magic hidden guns rolled out of the ceiling, walls and floors. They opened fire with vast sprays of blue paint that coated the crowd as X vanished in a flash of light.

Rock calmly walked through the shouting Reploids as they struggled to get out of range. He found his busters and placed them on again before walking out the door. Behind him in the gym Zero was organizing a battle against the paint cannons while laughing at the joke.

* * *

Well I finally gave you the fight. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't too horrible. I didn't plan for the staff but I never could see Rock using a blade, it just doesn't fit his stile. Take a guess at what I was going to give him instead of the staff, I dare you.

Rock will be confronted about abducting Akako in the next chapter, and I may finally show a maverick battle but don't hold me to that. Who thinks the face peel was too much? If you want to hold a conversation concerning my thoughts on Reploid 'capability' email me with it. Remember keep the reviews on the site clean.

Review or this fic will wither and die. I just don't like it enough to write it without reviews.


	7. chapter 7

Why am I updating this already? Because its starting to feel as if I'm in a race with Archaon. He updates as I do, or so it seams.

I apologize now to Rose Kitsune.EXE because she might not like me for what I'm going to do. I'll explain why I did what I did at the end of the chapter.

Thanks to anybody who liked the fight. They are my hardest things to write.

Ok first off, why he didn't keep the mop head. If he kept the mop head he wouldn't have had a staff weapon, it would have been classified as a spear or a halberd. And if anyone out there is a midlevel buff like me (or just like fighting with weapons like me) they know that that is a different fighting stile that is often much too slow to be used effectively in close quarters. Spears and halberds are used for group battles or keeping an enemy out of arms reach. And with Zero's exceptional speed a spear or halberd is not the weapon to fight him with.

Nobody could guess? Rock had one true melee weapon in the game, if only used defensively. Protoman's shield.

Enough talk get reading.

* * *

A blaster from the past C7)

Rock was heading down the hallways while still in his paint-covered armor. He didn't doubt that if this hadn't been a sparing match he would be waking up on a worktable while the scientists here picked over his severed body parts.

He turned down another hallway, noting that the base seamed to be little more than halls. He checked his map again and turned into a large shower room around the bend from the gym. He walked in and turned on the water hot, letting it wash the paint from him and his armor. As he turned off the water he heard sobbing around the dividing wall from the females showers.

He walked calmly around the bend, ready to run if he saw anything compromising. He stuck his head around the corner and saw something he had expected but not so soon of viscously. The fox reploid had been striped down to her underclothes and every hair on her head and body had been ripped or shaved free.

Rock took one look at her crying in a pile of her own fur and turned and walked away. Rogue robots, dark alien powers, strange lunatics he could deal with, a crying woman was something to avoid in his experience.

He pulled up a COM link to the medical ward and told the on duty nurse who answered where to find the fox reploid. Then he activated his wide range scanner and looked for the signal he knew would be nearby. Seeing a pink dot following along behind a red one and took off down the hall at a trot, passing the medical reploids as they went to get the injured reploid.

He jumped over or dogged around and between paint covered reploids and humans in the halls as he neared the gym again. He couldn't hear the paint cannons firing anymore and assumed the paint wars where already over. The two dots on his screen where moving away and the pink dot was slowly getting closer to the red.

Rock found a single trail of purple amongst the many blue footsteps covering the floor. He picked up his pace, his feet slamming against the ground as the walls flew past. She was stalking him and Rock wagered that this wasn't the first woman to get hurt when between her and Zero.

He spun around the corner and leapt upward as Zero spun around to see who was coming. Rock wrapped his hands around Roll's ankles and pulled her down from the ceiling, tossing her against a wall and positioning himself between her and Zero. "What exactly did you plan to do to him? Where you going to pull out his hair too? How many times have you attacked someone after they have been near him? Any reason? Or are you just obsessed to the verge of madness?"

Rock heard the hum of power as Zero's saber flared to life behind him. "That's that maverick I killed a few months back."

Rock didn't take his eyes of Roll as she climbed back to her feet, rubbing the scuff in her armor where she had hit the wall. Her eyes darted past Rock to Zero and then back to her brother. "I always gave them warnings first. Little things a first, Rs burnt into their doors or messages sent to them on private COMs telling them not to go near him. I had given Kitt several warnings."

"What the hell is going on here? Rock how do you know this reploid?" Zero stepped forward and to the side so he could watch them both easily.

"Zero, meet my sister Roll. She is a robot, not a Reploid and has been awake the whole time I was asleep. It turns out she has had a rather obsessive crush on you since you decapitated her." Rock watched a blush spread over Rolls face, she had more than a few upgrades so as to be easily mistaken as a human or reploid and blushing was a simple one.

"Are you kidding? There is more than one of you running around. How many of you are there?" Zero watched them both with a look of someone hunted by a lost memory or thought. He directed his next words at her, despite not looking away from either. "What have you been doing all this time?"

Roll was blushing more than before as Zero actually addressed her, Rock answered the questions first. "There where more than a few but I don't think many is still active. She has been gathering information for me while I slept." Rock waved his hand at Zero's saber, not noticing Zero's trembling fist. "You shouldn't need that unless you turn her down for a date."

The hunted look disappeared instantly as Zero realized what else Rock had said about Roll. "I got a hundred year old stalker that had beaten up every girl who gets near me?" his saber sputtered out as he started laughing. Roll blushed until she was brighter than her armor and stuttered something before disappearing in a flash of light.

Rock waited until his laughter had subsided before stepping close to him. "I don't think you want to upset her, or me." Zero's head came up and his laughter vanished as he glared at Rock.

His hand tightened on the hilt of his saber, "what does that mean?"

Rock let his hands fold away and channeled power to collect in the barrels. "She is a little unstable after being killed a few times, it happens to some robots. You make her mad and she wont hesitate to hurt you in the best way she can think of. And know this, I am her brother and will protect her if she cant do it herself."

Zero raised the hilt of his saber and drew it out before him so its end pointed at Rock's neck. "I should be scared of either of you? If I recall, you took the first hit in our spar and the most direct hits. What could she do?"

Rock stepped forward and placed his buster against Zero's chest and let the lens of the saber touch his neck. "She is almost as good as me but she fights dirty and has more equipment." He pressed the barrel harder, feeling it rub against the dent he made in Zero's armor earlier. "And we tend to come back after we die without nearly as much trouble as reploids."

They stood there glaring at each other until X came running down the hall in his armor. "What the heck are you doing! The fights over, if you want to pummel each other some more go back and get the training gear again." somebody must have seen them and told X what they where doing.

Rock kept his glare strong while he withdrew his busters and let the energy disperse. "Just a discussion about my sister." He looked over at X after a moment, "I would guess she is your sister too."

"Whaaa?" both Zero and X hadn't expected that. X recovered fast enough, "you, I mean we have a sister? Is this past tense?"

Rock enjoyed causing a little confusion at times but even he was confused as to why he and Zero where just about to fight. He smiled as he pushed the jumble of emotions aside and let logic take over. "Present tense. You meet her a while back, after Zero cut off her head and she went critical in the halls outside of his office. You had a very nice conversation that ended with her running away."

X's face was blank for a long while as he tried to comprehend what was happening. "Your saying that she, and you can come back after going critical? And retain your memories and personalities?"

"It isn't so odd. After all I was dead for a while and came back good as new." Zero leaned back against the wall and acted as if having died was nothing.

"That was different. You never went critical and power was kept in your parts so that your neural network didn't destabilize." Rock revaluated his opinion of X, he hadn't thought X cared much for research but if he knew how to prevent a neural network destabilization he might have a chance.

"Roll and I use rather simple memory cores for our memories and personalities. They are automatically transferred before a critical meltdown or as needed. Bodies are easy to replicate although waking up in a new one isn't always nice." Both of them where watching him like he had sprouted horns and a tail while speaking with a forked tongue.

"How many times have you been killed exactly?" Rock studied X's face and doubted he should say anything, so he didn't. He turned and started up the hallway, leaving them staring at his back until he turned the corner.

He walked quickly and headed towards nowhere in particular, he simple didn't want to have to deal with X and Zero. He found himself walking down between white halls with many doors with small windows and a strange smell in the air. His wandering had brought him back to the med-ward.

He caught the sound of crying and followed it to a door where a curtain was drawn over the window. He knocked on the door lightly and the sobbing stopped and was replaced by a flurry of muffled motion. "Go away."

Rock knew this was a bad idea but he griped the doorknob and went in slowly. The room was dark but his eyes could easily see her curled up on the bed and wrapped in blankets. He saw a flash of hazel eyes filled with tears, "I said get out!"

Rock shut the door behind him and walked over to the bed and sat calmly beside the trembling ball of blankets. He sat there for a long while in silence, not entirely sure why he was here. The trembling grew worse and the sobs returned, growing louder and making the blankest shake more than before.

"I'm sorry." Rock didn't delude himself into thinking he could have stopped this but he started the chain of events that made this happen.

The blankets shifted around and he could see the eyes watching him. "Why would you be sorry? I was the one, I was…" the eyes disappeared under the blankets and the crying started yet again.

"Shaved." The blankets where tossed away as the fox reploid sat up with a bolt.

Before when she had hit on him she had had lovely red-brown hair that came down around her neck and stood up slightly where her long ears stood out from her head. A very fine layer of fuzzy fur had also covered her face and body while her tail had had long fur with surprising body. Now her skin was and irritated where Roll had shaved her and her scalp glistened with where her hair had been ripped out and was starting to heal.

She was wearing a hospital gown the covered her body but she blushed after a moment and pulled the blankets around her, hiding everything except her blushing face. "How did you know? Are the rumors already spreading about this?" she raised a hand up to her face and scrubbed at the tears running from her eyes.

Rock shook his head, "I don't think so but I called the medics for you."

Rock found himself against the far wall with his damage control systems screaming about structural damage. He looked up and saw the fox reploid standing on the bed and trembling with rage. "You called them! If you hadn't I could have snuck off until my fur grew out."

Rock looked at her fist, seeing metal bone sticking out around destroyed synthetic tissue and motor systems. He reached up and felt the huge dent mashed into his armor and his body beneath, his fingers came away with a smear of her sliver/ red blood. She had hit him with every ounce of her strength; if she were in armor he would be wakening up on a worktable back in the lab.

Rock used the wall to pull himself back up, feeling worse than when Gutsman had hit him, this reploid had more than a little power. "I meant no harm. I was trying to make amends for the one who harmed you."

Rock pulled himself up again and looked back across the room where he had been standing. She had moved faster than even Zero had, she had grabbed him and tossed him across the room, cracks spread out from where he had hit the wall. "You know who did this?" Rock was suddenly held up in the air as her hands wrapped around his neck and tried crushing his air from him.

Rock opened his mouth to speak and felt his vocal synthesizer crack in her grip. He reached up and griped her wrists, her blood running down from her ruined hand made his hands slip. "Tell me where that pink bitch is!" she slammed him against the wall causing more cracks.

Rock managed to get a hold of her hands and force red them away from his neck, still held up against the wall with her pushing him. She growled at him and pressed harder, her bald face becoming a snarl. Rock felt the wall behind him begin to break as she forced him back, her strength wasn't much but her anger was driving her past her limits.

With a lurch and an audible nap the wall gave way and they both went tumbling through. Rock tossed her away but she had barely touched down when she came back with a devastating uppercut. Rock heard shattering metal as his head lurched back at an odd angle and he fell limp to the floor.

She snarled and leapt on him and began to pummel his body while he just lay there. She had effectively crippled him until his repair system repaired his neck and its severed data paths. Unfortunately she had lost control of her emotions and was now snarling and growling as she beat on his slowly cracking and warping armor.

There was a shout and a light in the room turned on while nurse reploids in white and pink armor came and pulled her away from him. He saw the glint of a needle and she slumped in their grasp almost instantly. They took her out the door as another nurse came over to him and pointed a medical scanner at him.

After a few moments she shook it and tossed it aside and placed her hand on Rock's twisted neck, feeling for a pulse he never had. After a moment she shook her head a pulled a sheet off the bed and tossed it over him. Apparently she hadn't heard about his incident earlier or she didn't recognize the battered armor and messed up face as Rock.

* * *

Rock was very annoyed at this incident; he lay there for nearly an hour. Then reploids came and got him and carried him off to some room full of refrigerated drawers. The lower temperature was slowing his repair systems down to less than thirty percent of its max.

Finally after nearly seven hours in the drawer he regained control over his body and a received a new damage report. The fox, he still wasn't sure of her name, had nearly finished him off. He sent his ruined armor away, only trusting his damaged transfer system to do that. And made his damaged body to move, kicking off the door over the drawer he crawled out.

The room was dark but that didn't stop his eyes from seeing the morgue around him. He walked out of the morgue as rapidly as his body would let him, not wanting to think about how many robots he had sent to the scrap pile.

He opened a COM and sent a text message, his voice still offline, to X. 'X. I'm near morgue and could use help.'

The reply came after a long wait, 'why? What happened? It is the middle of the night, can it wait?'

Rock felt his leg buckle under him and slumped down to the floor. 'No I cant, bring a mechanic. Fast.'

There was no reply and Rock considered calling Zero, he would just return home but his personal transfer device had taken a bit of damage and might not work properly. He checked his belt for a recovery chip and found only dead cells there, they had a limited lifetime and had probably expired soon after he got in the pod.

He heard boots thumping down the hall towards him and lifted his head and saw X and Zero running towards him along with the old human that had watched Rock test busters. They where in civilian clothes and dressed for bed, Zero in a tank top and boxers while X wore blue and whit pajamas and the old man was dressed as if he had been working.

Zero had his saber in hand and kept on going, looking for who had done this. X slid to a stop while that man took a moment to catch his breath. "What happened?"

"I got the shit beat out of me." His voice was cracked and full of static until it healed fully. Rock didn't see a toolkit in the man's hands witch meant he would have to go to wherever the man wanted to go to be fixed. "I said something stupid to an upset woman and got beaten through a wall." The old man kneeled beside Rock and lifted his shirt, whistling at the dent that was nearly five inches around and two deep.

"That had to hurt a little. What did she hit you with?" the man took a knife from somewhere under his lab coat and started to peel off the torn skin over Rocks chest.

"Her fist, and she would have killed me if I hadn't been wearing my armor. Her fist is going to need more than a little work too." Rock winced as the man took out a screwdriver, again from under his coat, and pried open the warped chest panel.

The man dove into Rock's chest with both hands, while X tried not to look. Zero came back and didn't flinch at the sight of Rocks twisted innards. "Where is she? And who is she? Was it your sister?"

Rock winced as the man pulled out a wire and wondered if the man knew what he was doing. "She was in the hospital ward, that fox reploid. I don't know where she is now; I have been in a drawer in the morgue for a few hours. Do you know what the hell your doing?" the last was directed at the man as he pulled out a broken chunk of metal framing and tossed it aside without a glance.

The man looked at Rocks face for a moment before going back to work without answering. "Don't worry about Doc here. He hasn't met anything he can't fix and I don't think you will be the first. He fixed my armor a few times and I don't trust anybody to do that." Rock tried glaring at X but Doc did something and pain flared in Rock's mind.

"Fox? Wait a minute you where that unknown reploid killed by Kitt today? Damn it! She woke up and ran off thinking she was going to be arrested or even retired. Great, another member of my squad gone." Zero turned and stormed off down the hall mustering under his breath. He stopped and looked back, "I'm going off to hunt her down before she dose something stupid. X, keep him out of trouble."

X watched Zero disappear and then glared at Rock. "I have enough trouble keeping Zero out of trouble without dealing with you. But if I have you here for a while I might as well get some answers."

"Not here. I need to get him down to my workshop before I can do anything else. You can question him there. Give me a hand moving him." Doc tossed aside another chunk of framing metal and griped Rock under an arm while X did the same on the other side.

Strain was visible on the man's face and even X looked surprised at Rock's weight. The trip down into the underground levels was silent except for the man muttering about his back.

Once they had dropped Rock on a work cluttered table X made himself scarce while the man took out a large dangerous looking drill. Rock closed his eyes and waited while pain and stats reports rolled into him. At several points the repots said he was near to shutting down.

With a clang Doc shut Rock's chest panel, "I can't do much more, I just don't understand most of your parts." Rock swung his feet off the table and stood, stretching slowly and checking that his stats report where correct.

"It will do until I can fix it myself." Actually Doc had done rather well, he had gone from critical structural damage and varying internal damage to being near seventy three percent functional.

X looked back in the door and saw Rock pulling on his shirt. "Good now I can talk to you about reports I have been getting about you." Rock tried activating his transfer but got an error that it wasn't responding.

"Looking for this?" Doc held up a small round disk with many lights and trailing wires. "I thought you might try leaving before Mister X could talk to you so I took out your transfer device. An interesting model too, looks better than X's even." Rock went to snatch it but X got it first and tucked it away in a pocket of his pajamas.

Doc gathered up several peaces that he had taken out of Rock and left the two alone in his workroom. X closed the door behind Doc and turned to Rock, "first off I need to know where Akako is?"

Rock sat down on the table again, wondering if he could wrestle his trans device away from X. as he recalled his damage and the fact that X could call his armor while Rock couldn't at the moment he decided it would be best to work with him for now. "She is back at my headquarters. She decided to jump into my transfer beam and was taken there with me. Until I'm sure she won't revile my secrets she will stay there. Don't worry about her though, she is very happy rediscovering things this age has forgotten and would probably fight to stay there."

X found a chair under a pile of greasy parts and sat down, jumping up again as oil stained his pajamas. He sighed and leaned against the wall and appeared to be thinking over what Rock had said or maybe his next question. "Light said about you matching my potential but I haven't seen it so far. You where beaten down with sheer force by a reploid without her armor. If it wasn't for your skill Zero would have beaten you bluer than your armor."

Rock picked up a steel ruler that had been melted somehow; he taped his leg with it in a measured pattern of beats. "I can but not in the same way. While your raw energy is incalculable its effect on the world isn't. You could, when near your projected max power before the computer freezes in mid calculation, summon a blast that could shred the every fabric of space. However I couldn't match that, only another reploid made on your exact sciatic could, I can however be upgraded and modified to match and exceed your current power levels by using reevaluated scans of your physical growth and evolution."

X's mouth was wide open and he seemed to be having trouble breathing. He regained enough composure after a while to focus on Rock again. "But if I could be that powerful isn't my very existence a threat to the world? What if my schematic gets out or a new scanner is built that can read all my systems?"

Rock shook his head and waved the questions away, although X's reaction said a lot about what he stood for. "That is why I'm here. You where made to be copied, all be it not in so much verity as I have seen. The only copy of your schematic is safe and well protected from anything I know of. And while a new scanner could be made it would never be able to read you in your entirety unless they knew what they where scanning for already."

Rock flicked the ruler up and let it stick into the tile-ceiling overhead. "I am here to make sure that if you are dangerous you never make it near your full potential. Hopefully it wont take too long to determine that, I would like to have a vacation from saving the world where I wasn't asleep."

X was clearly in shock as he slid down the wall and sat on the floor, after a long while Rock considered taking his trans device while he was trying to recover. X shook himself and climbed back to his feet and began pacing back and forth. "What about Roll? She doesn't seem entirely sane from what she did, not to mention you said she was a little off. And exactly how many other robots can I expect to turn up?"

Rock shook his head, " I don't know. There where more than a few that had gone bad or had been reprogrammed. And there are a few that helped me in the past but I don't know what happened to them or if they are still alive. And there are robots that neither Light nor Wily built, not many, but I know least one are still alive."

X was staring at him like he had grown leathery wings to go with his horns and tail from before. "That many? What is this one that is still alive and where is he?"

Rock stood up and checked his stasis reports; he was healing fast enough considering the rudimentary errors the Doc's repairs. "I'm not sure where he is but as near as I could tell he is immortal and invincible. His name was Duo and if he ever comes back to earth I don't think he could be stopped from destroying it if he chouse." He stretched his arms over his head and held out his hand, "I need my Trans device."

"Later." X patted his pocket where the device was. "What do you mean comes back to earth?" Rock sighed and sat down again and prepared to tell how he meet Duo. Chances are it would lead to other topics about everything Rock had done but he would keep back what was needing kept silent.

* * *

There chapter7 done. It was off for several reasons but I don't think it will be fixed anytime soon.

Rose Kitsune.EXE, again I'm sorry if shaving Kitt upset you. I had already had that part wrote before I got your review or read your bio. I made it up with her totally trashing Rock though. I'm afraid I'm not done picking on Kitt yet; it is going to be hard on her for a while. And I'm apologizing because you are very obsessed with kitsunes apparently.

Not sure what is going in the next chapter, plenty of ideas just not sure what ones to use first.

Kitt got lucky beating Rock. That first punch was rather disabling to his capabilities and had caught him off guard. From there it was all down hill for him.

I'm surprised nobody has commented on Rock's sudden shifts in mood or personality. This story gets everything pointed out before I'm ready to tell why but that hasn't. I'm going to tell you here because I don't feel like working it into the story. Rock's emotional processor is at odds with his logical processor and often they want to do diffract things. So sometimes he acts himself and others he acts as his logic says he should. Actually by my thinking that short growling match with Zero in the hall after Roll was logic telling Rock how he should be acting. As you can imagine it isn't a perfect system and has many flaws, and could be why Light worked on the Neural net in X (I have no idea what a reploid's brain is like so I call it a neural net. I am not a treky.)

That is a lot of talking; I will keep it down in the next chapter.

Later


	8. Chapter 8

I'm back. Sorry for the delay. I got sucked into a game addiction again. Zoids, Fire emblem, and a few small freeware games.

I don't own megaman.

Well I finally got some crude language in here. Who knew all I had to do was make a character that said nothing but. A decent amount of swearing as well, I did warn you. If I get too many protest I will go back and change it but I would rather not.

* * *

A blaster from the past C8)

Rock was using the assorted tools from Doc's workshop to reinstall his transfer device. X was still sitting silently where he had been for the last six hours; digesting the information Rock had told him. Rock had told X almost everything about his first few adventures, everything relevant at least.

"How did this all happen without anything about it surviving the wars?" X was surprised at how much Rock had done. "I mean all Cain, or anyone, has been able to find is some vague references to a blue warrior that might not even be you. The child's books say more about you than the few files we have found."

Rock flinched as the crude micro welder slipped and sent a spark across his systems. "In all likeliness they had been removed so that I wouldn't be remembered. A hero that is remembered but has not been around for so long when he was needed causes a good deal of resentment when and if he returns."

Rock twisted another wire into place and welded it, Doc hadn't been very careful about removing it and many of the wires had worked lose. "I'm wondering why you aren't asking about our brothers."

X slapped his head and sighed, "this is getting confusing. You're saying that because Light made me and made you and all these other robots we are related. How dose that work, we aren't even built on the same pattern and those others you described don't sound any closer. Not to mention almost all of us had been built at diffract times."

Rock welded the last wire and tossed aside the microreader before closing his chest cavity. "Its just a mater of him being our father, an emotional response added by upbringing around humans. But he made me, with a little help from Willy, and he made you. Besides that, you would have liked Protoman. He was a lot like Zero."

X groaned and pressed his hands against his ears, "I didn't need to know that. This world couldn't deal with another person anything like Zero. I know for certain I couldn't. Do you know if Protoman is still around somewhere, or any of those others you mentioned?"

Rock stood up and stretched his arms over his had to check his mobility before sitting down again and diverting a bit more power to his auto-repair systems. "No I have no idea at all. They might be but it strikes me as unlikely that they all survived unless they found or made themselves stasis pods." Rock watched his stats report as his body finished installing his transfer device. His heath had been gradually increasing as he told X his story.

X was starting to doubt the story Rock was feeding him and it showed on his face. "Where would they find stasis pods? They are more than a little rare, even in your time."

Rock stood up again and started for the door, only for X to block him. "I want to know where your base is and why I cant go there. Is it because you actually have something that would be dangerous to me or is it that you don't want to show me something that could stop reploids from going maverick?"

Rock frowned at X, not having expected this reaction so soon. "There is nothing that can stop a reploid from going Maverick except the reploid. There are many things at the lab that would be dangerous to anyone in anybody's hands, even those meaning to do good."

Rock stepped around X and out the door; in the outer room Doc was snoring in a chair with a data pad in one hand and a peace of Rock's power network in the other. Rock went out into the halls and started his usual walking without direction. He considered going back to the compound but it would be pointless to even try until his trans device stabilized again.

He found himself in the main lobby of the hunter head quarters, and looking out at the city. After a while he walked back and followed his map to where the command center was. He entered the room and found himself in a large room full of reploids and commuter terminals and wall screens. As he walked across the floor towards the large table map in the center work slowed as everyone turned to watch him.

He stopped at the table and looked down at the many dots on its surface. "Can I help you sir?" he turned and looked for the voice, only to have to look downward to find the very short reploid that was addressing him.

"Where is Zero?" he couldn't believe reploids would be made so young looking as this boy beside him. He was like a small child with blue hair and wearing a finely made uniform.

"Commander Zero is on a solo search and rescue. He told me not to divulge his location to you if you came asking. I'm sorry sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?" the little reploid smiled at Rock.

"No. That is fine." Rock turned and left, he stopped beside the door and looked back, meeting every eye he could. "Shouldn't you all be working?"

Everyone gave a start and hurried back to the tasks they had forgotten while watching him. He felt a bit of a rush at so many people staring at him, not in wonder or joy, he was well sick of that. But they actually seemed startled and confused by him, he could guess about some of the stories floating around already.

He was now walking down the hall towards X's office to see if he was there already. He walked in the newly repaired door and found that X wasn't there yet, however he did find Roll. She was sitting in X's chair and had her hands behind her head looking nearly asleep. She wants in her armor for once, having opted to wear high-heeled boots with a freighting short miniskirt and a tube-top, everything was in the same nearly black red.

Rocks dropped into the other chair and lean backed in much the same way she was except he kept his across his chest. "I can't say I approve of your new stile, too provocative." He meets her glare with his own before relenting, "where what you want but I don't have to like it."

She closed her eyes again and leaned further back, something Rock could never do without falling over. "I came over to see if you wanted to now where Kitt ran off to hide. I tried following you but you don't hold still long enough and I didn't want to bug you while you where being chewed on by X."

He frowned for a moment and tried once again to lean further back in his chair, and once more went down. After righting himself and the chair he looked at her as she smiled at his mishap. "And why exactly do you want me to find the fox?" he did want to find Kitt but he knew Roll would have a motive and he doubted it was going to be harmless.

Her smile shifted into something more like a hungry wolf, "well I was hoping you would run off and get beaten down again. I even fixed you armor up and replaced your spent recover chips." She pulled a small square chip from her own belt and tossed it to him.

He caught it and checked to see that it was the gray energy cell containing a small boost for his auto-repair systems. It was, if only a weaker one and he slid it into his mouth. It slid under his tongue and entered the slot made for it and he felt his systems flare into a burst of energy that restored almost ten percent of his health.

He spat out the spent chip, he never liked eating the chip itself even if he could and that it would be used towards restoring missing materials. Roll shook her head at him and smacked her palm down on the chip, crushing it into dust and leaving a slight palm indentation in the desk.

"So do you want to know where she is or what?" Roll dusted off her hands and made a face at the dent in X's desk.

Rock shrugged and leaned back again, not enough to fall thought. "Yeah why not. It would give me something to do for a while." Even before he had finished speaking a text message contain coordinates arrived on his COM.

"Good. Don't let her run, she is fast." And with that Roll transferred away, not even bothering to stand up from her chair. Rock grinned at the thought of her suddenly landing on her ass somewhere but shook it away as he stood up and checked the condition of his trans device. It was functional enough that he would have to worry about appearing with a leg in the wrong place.

He called his armor and found that Roll had done a very nice job cleaning it; she even touched up the paint and polished it to a shine. He flexed his arms and bent his knees, finding that she had also done some slight adjustments to his joints. He shook his head at how much she had changed and entered the coordinates into his trans device.

X opened the door to his office just in time to see shiny blue armor disappear into bright light. Went over to his desk and dropped the stack of folders there and pulled out a small data pad that had a simple list of coordinates on it. Currently the numbers where jumping around but even before a second had passed they had settled down, telling X that Rock was somewhere in the southern hemisphere.

Rock appeared as usual in his flash of light, however he was a good way up off the ground. In a long learned reflex his hand flew from his side to his belt and then snapped down below his feet. The small red cube unfolded and his feet stamped down on the floating platform hard enough to send it dangerously close to the ground. He waited until the spinning propeller was inches from the ground and stepped off, catching the cube as it started to fold and shot upward.

He looked around and was surprised to find he was standing in a vast rippling plain that wouldn't have existed here in his time. He shook his head as yet something else reminded him how long he had been gone. He started walking while looking around for where Kitt could be hiding; there wasn't anything to hide in or under. Even the stunted grasses and occasional shrub wouldn't have hid a small animal.

He continued walking, observing how several antelope like creatures watched him from a short way off. Just because there was no where to hide didn't mean there where no animals here, far from it. He saw more animals here than he had expected after reading the many reports of careless use of bio and chemical weapons in the now long past wars.

He heard something that sounded out of place with the wind in the grass and the sounds of the small herbivores scurrying away from him. He turned slowly, tracking it back to where it was coming from. He spotted a small shallow in the side of a gentle rise; it was almost invisible under a slanted moss covered stone. He could hear the wind as it whistled over the hole and sent a gentle whisper of sound into the air.

Rock approached the shallow and ducked down to look inside, finding that it continued on back into the rise and slowly dropped downward. He shrugged once and slid his feet into the hole and let go of the stone, sliding roughly down along with a shower of loose dirt. He landed at the bottom and stood slowly, having to stay crouched to avoid hitting his head.

He took two steps while looking around before something tackled him with a scream. Something was jammed against his neck and the world faded out around Rock as whatever attack it was disrupted his systems and sent him into shutdown.

Rock came online with a jolt, only to find he was bound in several layers of cable and rope. He looked around and saw that he was still in the small underground room he had found earlier except it was now lit with a few grass torches. He flexed his arms and chest, trying to snap the bonds holding him but they where tight and made of many layers.

Rock looked around some more, finding that his helmet and buster had been taken from him and piled far away from him. He tried opening his COM to call either X or perhaps Rush but he couldn't find a signal. Something was putting out a very powerful dampening field. The dampening field also canceled out his chances of transferring away. He was stuck here.

After a long wait he heard something slide down the tunnel and into the room. He twisted his head around and saw Kitt in her red and white armor. It was shaped smoothly and without much in the way of protection but it was clear that it was made for speed and causing accurate damage. She can in and sat down near the center of the room with a small box clasped in her hands.

Rock studied her as she had her back to him while doing something in the box. Her hair and fur was already starting to grow out as short red hair was all over her head and he could see light fuzz coming on her neck. It wouldn't be long until it was as if she hadn't been shaved. He was rather regretful that he had called the medics if her fur was growing out already. No wonder she was pissed at him, it did raise the question of why she didn't kill him after knocking him out.

"Stop staring at me or ill tear out your eyes." She must have known he was awake again but she still didn't turn around to look at him. "Why are you in my den anyhow? Didn't you cause me enough embarrassment or pain?"

Rock heard something in her voice, something she was trying to hide from him. "I came to find you and take you back. Apparently Zero doesn't want to use a member of his team. And since you didn't 'retire' me you aren't facing any repercussions, except perhaps smashing a wall."

She didn't answer for a long time, working with what she had in the box. Rock flexed his arms again, this time trying to shift the many layers of cable and rope. The rope and cable was merely bits and peaces that had been found somewhere and braided together to make a decent length, however it was surprisingly well made.

"I can't go back." Her shoulders shook and Rock wondered what she was working on so hard. "Because of you and that pink bitch I'm the laughing stock of the Hunters. I couldn't go back there and be laughed at every time someone thought I wouldn't see."

Rock blinked as he released her shoulders where shaking from crying. He really wished his COM were working now, so he could call someone who might know what to do. "Surely they would laugh at you for being ambushed by a more powerful enemy while in your own headquarters."

Rock grunted as his neck and shoulders where slammed against the ceiling. Kitt had once again grabbed him and picked him from his feet, or back in this instance, faster than he could follow. "That is why I would be laughed at! She caught me off guard in my own territory."

Her face was flushed with anger under the growing fur while tears still trailed down her face from her tired eyes. "I am going to have to disappear now so that I don't run onto anyone. And I still have to avoid mavericks and take them out if I find them. I have become a renegade hunter." She slammed him against the ceiling again, sending dust raining down around her. "All thanks to you." She dropped him and went back to her box, having to walk bent almost double under the low roof.

Rock rolled back onto his back and watched her back as she continued to work. "What is responsible for the jamming field?"

She turned at studded his face for a moment before turning back to her box. "The biomechanical trees emit a large level of power that acts as a scrabbling field. And my den is almost right on top of a loadstone deposit. Everything is scrambled in here; I found it before when my training squadron was searching the area for am elusive maverick. It makes a nice like place to hide until I find someplace better."

Rock flexed again, knowing it was pointless but having not much else to do. "What are you plaining to do to me? Destroying me is an option but if you do that you will likely be hunted for it. Not to mention I don't stay dead." Rock hated being killed but it made an incredible bluff, especially when he came back again to fight whoever managed to do him in.

Kitt stopped what she was doing and slowly turned around with a smile that made Rock wish she would just kill him. She climbed to her knees and came towards him swaying her hips and flickering her tail. It was very erotic even with her short fur but it was nothing compared to the smile on her face.

"I was thinking maybe I could take you with me. After all it isn't often you meet a cute little drone. I was thinking I could do a little reprogramming and have myself a nice little man servant." She leaned over his bund body and slowly ran her lips up along his jaw. "After all I wager you would like it even if I didn't program you for it."

Rock's logic was over powered by rage at her mention of reprogramming. He moved every muscle in his body, not hearing the damage reports as they where pressed past there limits. The ropes began to fray and the cabled tore into his skin before with a series of snaps many of them broke and flipped away. A few lashed across Kitt's armor as she jumped back and Rock surged to his feet, swatting away the last of the restraints.

"NOBODY REPROGRAMES ME!" Rock screamed and dived at the surprised Kitt. She went down as Rock tackled her and watched with wide eyes as he pulled back a fist. The fist began to fall, ready to drive into her face and out the other side.

Kitt closed her eyes and screamed but after a moment she opened her eyes to find Rock's fist trembling mere inches from her face, it was held back, barely, by two other pairs of hands. She looked past the fist and saw Rock still glaring at her and leaning into the punch, still trying to drive it into her face. "Kitt. Move. Now!" she slid out from under Rock's knees and slid back away from him and the two hunters holding his fist.

She watched as Rock slowly turned towards her away, the hands of X and Zero only slowing him. She could see the strain on their faces as Rock took a step towards her, dragging them both along with him. "Kitt. Outside now!" she nodded at her commander's command and darted for the hole leading outside.

She just popped from the hole when a pair of large hands griped her arms and pulled her up. She tried pulling away from the reploid but he kept a firm grip on her arm as he stepped clear of the den entrance. She looked at him and saw a massively tall reploid in thick gray armor that had several artillery cannons rising over his shoulders. His face was wide and smiling under the dark visor covering his eyes, "good to see you Kitt. I don't know why you're trying to run away from us."

"Gray." She looked around and saw a few other reploids from the 0 squad. "No." she bared her face in Grays armor, trying to hide her baldness.

"Aw come on it ant like it aint growing back." She tried pulling in deeper to Gray's armor but he easily pulled her away from him so he could look at her. "Look at me I'm bald already and it isn't going to grow back." He reached up and pulled of his helmet to show the ring of brown hair around his head and his surprisingly gentle eyes with their laugh lines.

"Yeah we don't care about your hair. We just want to see that walk. Oww." She looked over at who had been talking and saw a thin repliod with even thinner green armor and a helmet with small-feathered wings sweaping back from his ears. He was leaning on a metal staff and rubbing his arm where the girl beside him had hit him.

"Your not helping Wayra." She was much like him except for her armor being white and holding a shorter staff under her arm. They both had short wings protruding from their backs and deep reflective green eyes.

"What you want me to act all noble? Then she will think we are just blowing smoke. Besides, I do watch her walk more than her hair." He purposely drooled as he ran his eyes over Kitt's legs. "Oww! Sora, Stop hitting me!"

Kitt smiled for a moment before trying to hide her face against Gray's armor again. These where her closest friends and they often worked on missions together and got them done above the average success rate.

Before anything else could happen the hole into her den exploded with smoke and X and commander Zero came flying out covered in dust. A moment latter Rock smashed out of the hole with a scream, his armor was covered in dust and his hair was full of dirt. He stood there panting heavily as the dust settled around him.

His face was torn and scratched from stones and his hands had been striped of their thin layer of skin to revile the metal below. Nobody moved as he stood there and burned holes into the ground with his eyes. Finally commander Zero found his feet and helped X back to his. Kitt found herself taking her position behind Zero and readied her own plasma daggers. She didn't even have to look to know that her friends took her own as well.

"Kitt." She turned to commander X and saw him holding his hand where his fingers had been bent over backwards. "What did you say to him?"

"I don't know. He is just a drone, how could I say anything that would get him mad. Drones don't have emotions." She saw Rock still hadn't moved and didn't show any signs of doing so.

"You sure are a dumb one aren't you foxy." Kitt spun around and found Roll in her pink armor approaching them. Kitt felt a flare of anger and flung her first plasma danger at her. Roll steped aside and caught the handle as it passed where her head had been a moment before.

"Kitt, stand down." Kitt turned and saw commander Zero had fixed her with a glare over his shoulder with one eye while keeping the other on Rock. "What did you say before he tried putting a fist in the ground with your face in the way."

Kitt blushed and didn't look him in the eye. She wasn't used to being chastised by her commander. "I told him I was thinking of keeping him around as a little pleasure boy."

Roll started laughing and didn't stop even when Kitt called her dagger back, making it fly from Roll's hand. After her laughter faded she grinned at Zero, "Maybe I should do that to you. What do you think Zero? I could make it fun for both of us." X groaned and clamped his hands over his ears to avoid this thought.

"Why would that upset Rocky over there? I would pay for that to happen." Wayra fluttered in the air on his wings near his sister. He just managed to avoid his sister's fist as she swept past him. "I mean come on most guys I know would go for that." This time Sora's fist connected with the back of his helmet and spun him in the air once.

"Willy." Everyone turned to stare at Rock where he stood when he spoke that name calmly but with an astounding level of resentment. He said it like it was the worst curse in the world, it was clear he wasn't aware of them around him anymore.

"Wow. Swings for the other team huh?" Wayra crashed to the ground as Roll's charged shot smashed him from the air.

"You stupid fox. You threatened to reprogram him didn't you." Roll had her busters glowing with full charges, and both where pointed at Kitt.

"Wait what's this about? Why would a threat of reprograming piss of Rock?" Zero had his saber out, not activated yet, but was having one heck of a time keeping an eye on both Roll and the still enraged Rock.

Roll growled at Kitt then walked towards Rock, pushing X out of her way. She let her hands fold away and lifted her face guard up; she gently placed a hand on Rock's shoulder. She grimaced as he smashed his fist into her stomach and sent her tumbling away. She pulled herself up to her feet and shook her head, "get out of here."

"What is going on? Why has he blown a gasket and furthermore why hasn't he tried attacking us since he came out of my den?" Kitt didn't trust Roll, but that was to be expected after what Roll had done to her.

Roll turned on her, her eyes matching Rocks for a moment of pure rage before she smothered it. "You told him you where going to reprogram him you bitch. If I know one thing that could send him over the edge it's that! Willy tried reprogramming him and Rock managed to resist while every other robot couldn't. It kind of messed him up about the subject, it would you too."

Nobody saw Zero's puzzled face at the mention of Willy, nor that X had given up trying to calm everyone down and was now simply watching the show. Kitt marched up to Roll, "reploids can't be reprogrammed. And how is a drone getting mad? Drones have NO emotions."

Kitt fell to the ground with a red welt starting to rise across her face from Roll's slap. "Rock is not a drone and neither am I. If you think we aren't just as capable as you we could settle this with a fight anytime you want."

Wayra was leaning against Gray's arm to stay upright; Roll's blast had hit him hard. But not hard enough to stop his next comment, "alright I will mix the jellow while you two put on your thongs." Wayra fell over as Gray stepped away from him.

"Team. Withdraw to HQ." Zero had managed to push away the strange name of Willy and decided to act like the hunter he was. "Commander X and I can handle this from here. Move it or I will put you all on swamp diving detail. And Gray, keep Kitt close, I don't want to have to go hunting her again."

The four reploids nodded and disappeared into flashes of light, leaving Zero and X with the robot siblings. Zero turned to Roll as she was staring at him in a way he found rather disconcerting. "Now how do we calm him down?" He tried to ignore her flickering eyelashes and the slight pink blush on her cheeks.

"Oh he just has to let his logical side work past the rage, it could take a while. But 'we' could go and have nice walk while we wait." She batted her eyes at him and he indivertibly took a step back. He was used to chasing girls and being chased but this was a first for having one give him the full force press and be a hell of a lot older than him.

X was laughing at Zero as it looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Zero never had trouble talking to women, "what are you laughing at? Get your sister to stop hitting on me." X could only laugh harder as Roll latched onto Zero's arm and he tried pulling away only to realize she was just as strong as Rock.

* * *

Bad chapter. I might try fixing it but I don't know right now, I need to work on some of my other fics.

And for the record. Kitt is a tease, not a slut.

Oh and Wayra means wind while Sora stands for sky. It thought a pair of flying twins needed interesting names.

Later


End file.
